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I-95 overpass work almost done
2015-10-28 11.36.50
Traffic maneuvers around construction barrels on Highway 17 at Interstate 95 in Richmond Hill in this file photo. - photo by By Paul Floeckher
By Paul Floeckher
Updated: Oct 28, 2015, 10:45 PM
Published: Oct 28, 2015, 10:47 PM

All lanes of traffic at the Interstate 95’s exit 87 interchange in Richmond Hill could be back open as soon as Friday, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Work crews are wrapping up their repairs to the damaged I-95 overpass and, weather permitting, all lanes of the interstate and Highway 17 should reopen Friday or Saturday, GDOT District Communications Officer Jill Nagel said.

“They should be out of there at the end of the week if the weather cooperates,” Nagel said. “When I say out of there, I mean everything gone and everything open.”

Once the workers finish the project and move out their equipment, all lanes of I-95 and Highway 17 will be open for the first time in nearly four months.

“That’ll make a lot of people happy,” Nagel said.

The right lane of Highway 17 North has been closed since the I-95 overpass was hit by a tractor-trailer July 2. Nine support beams were damaged when an excavator that was loaded on the truck’s flatbed trailer became wedged underneath the bridge.

The left lane of Highway 17 north also was shut down once the repairs began, and one southbound lane was converted to northbound. Meanwhile, lanes intermittently were closed on I-95 as workers replaced seven of the damaged beams and repaired the other two.

The remaining work to the overpass is minor, Nagel said, such as striping the sections of I-95 where the repairs were done.

Also, a concrete median on Highway 17 is being rebuilt after sections of it were removed to make navigating the traffic shift easier.

The contractor, L.C. Whitford of Alpharetta, was given 30 days to complete the $1.4 million project. However, crews have worked in shifts “around the clock,” Nagel said, to finish in less time.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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