The roads will hopefully get a little smoother in Florala as officials work to secure paving projects throughout the city.

Mayor Robert Williamson said one of the biggest projects on the horizon is to replace an 80-plus-year-old water line running down the center of Fifth Avenue, and to eventually repave the street.

“The repaving of Fifth Avenue has always been on the top of our priority list,” Williamson said. “The problem was the 80- to 100-year-old water main that runs right down the center. There is about eight inches of concrete on top of it and the machines that we’d have to use to break up the concrete would rip those pipes to shred.

“Now, the Florala Utilities Board has said they will replace the water main through town,” he said. “(The Alabama Department of Transportation) has said if the pipe is replaced, they’d work to get funding to repave (U.S. Hwy.) 331 all the way through town.”

Williamson said the project is currently in the design phase.

Williamson said grant money has already been secured to pave the upper portion of Fifth Avenue from where it “Ys” right, downward until it becomes Still Pond Road, as well as the entirety of Juniper Street.