(a)
(1) When the Arkansas Department of Transportation has been forced to bar traffic from a flooded section of a state highway by putting up signs directing the traffic from the state highway or by stationing state highway employees on the state highway to direct traffic from the state highway over a road surfaced with gravel, crushed stone, or other type of surfacing or pavement, and when it appears that the detour road will continue to be needed, the department shall have authority, as it deems right and proper, to do any repair to the surfacing of the road over which traffic is diverted by the department, as may equal, in the judgment of the department, the amount of wear and tear that is caused to the road by the traffic diverted over it.
(2) However, the department shall only do such maintenance work on the surface of the road as in the judgment of the department it feels that it has caused wear to the surface of the road by reason of the traffic diverted over it from time to time.
(b) In order that this maintenance work may be legally done on such surfaced road, the road used for this purpose shall henceforth be a part of the state highway system.
(c) It is distinctly understood that this section shall not force any maintenance of a road on the department but will merely make it legal for the department to do the amount of maintenance on the surfaced road that it feels it has caused to be needed to the surface of the road by traffic diverted over it by action of the department through its employees.