NIKKI HALEY’S TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT BEARS BRUNT OF BLAME
Frozen bridges in and around Charleston, S.C. have local residents – and their kneejerk elected officials – steaming mad at S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s Department of Transportation (SCDOT).
And with good reason …
As of Thursday morning the city’s iconic Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge – known locally as the “Cuz-way” – remained close due to ice, creating huge bottlenecks on alternate routes and Interstate 526. Meanwhile the Don Holt Bridge – another economically vital thoroughfare – was shut down until late Wednesday evening.
“Where in the hell is Haley and the DOT?” one exasperated local told FITS.
Russell Guerard, a candidate for the S.C. State House, said government leaders were “completely unprepared” for the storm.
“They had five days to figure this out,” Guerard said. “Safety obviously comes first but our leaders made promises to people and businesses. This has gone on for two days.”
He’s right … and imagine how bad it would have been if Winter Storm Leon had packed the punch people were expecting?
Surely the SCDOT is contemplating major changes to its winter storm preparedness plans, right?
Ummmmmm, not so much …
“I don’t think we’re going to change a whole lot,” former S.C. Rep. James Law, a department spokesman, told WCBD TV 2 (NBC – Charleston, S.C.). “We’ll go back and reassess everything we did and the results we got, but we’ve done everything we possibly can do to keep the roadways open.”
Really, dude?
Opened in 2005, the Ravenel Bridge is the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere. More than 90,000 vehicles cross it on a daily basis. Usually …
UPDATE: SCDOT says it hopes to have the Ravenel Bridge open by rush hour Thursday afternoon.
(Banner via Holy City Helicopters)
119 comments
Stop driving beer cans on training wheels, buy a real vehicle and don’t depend on the government to provide you with access to your work. XP
Won’t help you if everyone else is driving beer cans.
Vote with your money, and you elect a prick.
They’re welcome to drive all the beer cans they like. My truck will be glad to nudge them out the way with nary a scratch to mine if they hit me. I haven’t hit anyone on an icy road in a very long time, Praise God. Cause I don’t do 900 miles per hour in a beer can on a “slab of lubricated glass”.
5 mph with a couple hundred pounds of sand over the rear axle. Nice big fat gas guzzling hunk of cast iron over the front axle. First gear all day long.
And we all know someone who just had to drive around to “see whut’s goin’ on” ..!!
Damn MF Skippy. Got picks too :-D
Uh, how are you going to get from point a to point b in your piece of shit car when the roads are completely blocked by idiots with cars that use gas efficiently?
This is the problem with libertarians – they live in an insane world with idiots who pay taxes.
I do fine. Roll right on by. And when I do I’m getting MPG. When they’re idling to stay warm, they are not.
Uh, how are you going to get from point a to point b in your piece of shit car when the roads are completely blocked by idiots
———-
I do fine. Roll right on by.
Is this one of those “king of the hill” things where I shoot you with my automatic projectile weapon with the time lag circuits, and you still yell out “you missed me?”
But what if….. Meh
If you don’t think about what if and it happens…
what if there aren’t any WMD? What if you die from eating bad meat they told you was good? What if they get rid of taxes and the road warrior outfits are all taken?
Frank,
Guess you’re not on the waiting list for the 2015 F-150?
Not me brother, but if you know anyone with a 69 International flat bed or with tool bins, holla at me brother.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fvAUu8LqCVo/TUhlsgeB2II/AAAAAAAAARA/RnRyS7GJq-g/s1600/68%2BIH%2B1200.jpg
I’m not sold on the Ecoboost bullshit myself, it’s call because of CAFE…otherwise they’d be doing large displacement normally aspirated…which for towing makes more sense in gasoline engines(diesel is a different matter).
t doesn’t matter what you drive on ice. 4WD does no good when your sliding.
t doesn’t matter what you drive on ice. 4WD does no good when your sliding.
in fact the giant wheels tend to make big SUV’s far worse on ice or packed snow. much better off in a front wheel drive corolla or something similar.
My non-snow driving wife had no trouble at all getting around in my Subaru Outback.
Front wheel drive don’t mean squat.
Mass. It’s physics.
I’ve driven both rear wheel drive and front wheel drive on
ice and snow (worse than we just experienced) and I can attest that front wheel
drive is far superior to rear wheel drive in those environments.
I didn’t say 4WD and it does matter. Nice big nasty rusty POS truck. Lots of dents and very heavy. 1968 would be about right. International with tool bins. Big F350. Nice wide tires for lots of traction. Put a $35 load of sand in the back.
Drove in the snow and ice for many years. LMAO everytime I see a Toy-yottie in the wall. Bwwwahahahahahahahaahaha
Point can be made that southerners can’t drive in snow and ice. I was born and raised in Jersey and can remember one day driving to work on an interstate and just sliding along at 10 or less mph in a long line of cars. It takes a lot of skill and experience to navigate ice. Not for the faint of heart no matter what they drive. “Pride goeth before a fall.”
Copy that.
You can also make a point that nobody can drive across a bridge that’s closed.
I’m proud to say that I don’t live in a place that has shitty weather enough to make one learn “how to drive” in it.
But if you want to brag about such things, than please go right ahead.
Yankee.
Some of us Southerners have no problem with snow or ice – every car in the drive way is AWD of 4WD and I started skiing 35 years ago. Slow down, buckle up and let the other idiots kill each other, use the median, the shoulders of the neighbors yard to get around them when they do…(after checking to make sure they’re not dead…)
Big wide tires don’t give you more traction, they help you slip and slide over whatever is under them.
Beware the egg baring false follows.
known locally as the “Cuz-way”
——–
The Carnival Cuz (c) MD
I’ve lived here all of my 45 years and this is the first time I’ve ever heard any bridge here called that.
Maybe it was named by someone under it.
My step-grandson(5) once told me when I told him “green means go, red means stop, and yellow means go faster” – “I haven’t heard anything like that in my whoooooooole life!”
Well, seeing as that bridge has only been in operation since ’05…seems I might have heard it called that during its lifetime.
…the argot of the culvert dwellers and orphan pickpocket cadre of Bez the magnificent, no doubt.
I am not one to bite my tongue when given the opportunity to point out the many failings of Haley, but this is not on her. What a bunch of whining people! When a rare ice storm creates a sheet of ice on the bridges, it makes it dangerous to drive across. Why do these communters feel that government resources must immediately be brought to bear to alleviate any obstacle or inconvenience that might get in their way? Many South Carolinians outside of Mt. Pleasant were also affected by this storm. Grow up, you bunch of crybabies.
i agree. but really – wouldn’t have been much trouble to run a couple salt trucks over the bridge, maybe just keep one lane open. so little trouble that it’s odd not to have done it.
…if there was just someplace nearby where they could obtain salt or brine……..
Uh, a coupla hundred feet below is a great place to find some brine
Some nice trout and sheepies around them rocks, also.
PRO TIP:
Don’t anchor near the pilings.
We need to have a serious discussion TBG. I’m normally a fly fisherman but my boys just like to catch fish so when I get home we plan to hit the harbor hard. Any advice on trout or sheep, lures, time of year, time of day, tides?
A guy was at home drinking to kill the boredom. He decides to go ice fishing. He starts to drill a hole with his auger when a loud booming voice says, “THERE’S NO FISH DOWN THERE!”
The guy stops drilling and moves about thirty feet and
starts to drill again. The same voice booms, “THERE’S NO FISH DOWN THERE!”
The drunk looks around and says, “Who are you anyways? Are you God?”
“NO – I’M THE RINK MANAGER!”
Serious discussion Shifty, serious discussion!
Another case where subsequent postings put a previous one (in this case) out of sync….
For you, Shifty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6PudFChsS4
Excellent discussion on fishing in the origins of the Atlantic Ocean. It may also explain why, when I cork fished, I didn’t catch anything. ‘Course, it could have been because I used boiled peanuts for bait.
Thanks – never knew about this show — “I didn’t make the connection!”
“Long time listener. First time caller…”
All of them are funny, but TBG’s faves are “The Critter”, “The Turkey”, “The Escort” and “Too Hot for Radio”.
Be happy to Col. For general fishing around the harbor (spottail, flounder, trout etc) TBG is a live bait guy (‘cept for trout in the late fall). Get out a couple hours before dead low tide and catch shrimp and finger mullet with a cast net and mud minnows with a minnow trap.
PRO TIP:
Find one of those pools in the marsh that holds water as the tide runs out (often behind an oyster bar). Break a blue crab in two, discard the claws (partially opened can of sardines will work if crab is unavailable), put in minnow trap and toss (with string attached into pool. Drink half a beer (wait 15 minutes) retrieve trap. Should have hundreds of minnows in it. They don’t trap as good on cloudy days, though.
Ride around at low tide and find creek mouths, sharp drop offs, oyster bars, pilings and other structure. Start fishing with the incoming tide. Over time you will learn when, during the tide cycle, fish move through a spot. For example, if you are fishing a creek mouth and notice that you usually get bites 45 minutes into the incoming tide…you might want to consider moving upstream to another spot that you’ve scouted at about the one hour mark.Over time you will develop spots for almost any stage of the tide….you basically reverse them for the outgoing tide. For muddy bottoms I prefer Carolina rigs. Fish over oysters either with a cork, or a three way swivel with a light weight attached with very light line. The weight is “sacrificial’ in that it’s what normally snags.
Very good TBG – vielen dank!
I normally fish top water with a fly rod. The buoys in the channel toward the ocean are always good for Spanish Mackerel once the water warms a little – heavily dressed clousers and bucktail deceivers fished to the buoy are always good. Jack Crevalle can be found tailing the flats and along the drop offs all the way out to Sullivans on the Patriots point side and are suckers for hardbody poppers and crease flies. (don’t eat them, they’d kill a fricking coyote). Most of what I catch I put back but the boys would fish with dynamite if it was legal. We’ll be working the trout, sheep and drum with bait for them.
Okay – you all can return to you general verbal mayhem now
Fly fishing in the harbor? Bullshit. It hasn’t been below a 2′ sea at any time in the harbor in 15+ years.
I mean you can do it…but you won’t catch anything.
Norma you apparently know nothing about fly fishing and haven’t spent a lot of time in the harbor – I regularly catch fish with a 9.5 foot 9 weight rod in the surf and out of a boat off Bald Head Island (where Cape Fear Starts it’s also know as Frying Pan Shoals).
It’s been about 5 years since I fished the harbor but I’ve caught fish out at the fort, along the shore by Fort Moultrie and all the way back around to the carrier. You can’t fish top water plugs out in the harbor proper but clousers (shad imitation) crease flies and a variety of other weighted patterns work well – (just like cut bait only a lot more fun when the fish takes it) You can always find calmer water along the boundaries when the tide is running.
Colon, I essentially grew up in that harbor, and have been fishing it since before I could walk. I’ll admit to not being a pro at fly fishing, as it to me it seems a lot like sailing–a whole lot of work for not much outcome.
If you can get something to hit a top water fly in a 2′ sea and boats buzzing all around you, you’re doing something noone else is able to do. I think in all my years on that harbor, in the Wando and up the Cooper (and even in the fresh water side down both branches) I’ve NEVER seen anyone flyfishing south of the CR bridge.
Pay attention in mid May, you’ll see a 17 foot Whaler with a aging boatman with two sons and a 9 foot fly rod working the buoys. As I said “You can’t fish top water plugs out in the harbor proper but clousers (shad imitation) crease flies and a variety of other weighted patterns work well” I throw a weight forward line with lead eyed flies, they quickly get to the 5 -6 depth if you let them. You strip line to draw them in and they swim just like bait fish. Wahoo and Macks like to circle the buoys and will hit one in a heart beat. Sinking lines/flies can be fished just like lures.
You definitely can’t get out every day and often can’t stay out for long but it’s most assuredly fly rod fishable. The flats areas over near Shem’s Creek are ideal fly rod fishing ground except when the “boaty crowd” gets out. I fished down there for years in a 15 foot aluminum boat.
I think that’s “Shem” Creek, but after a few too many beers at Red’s I might call it that as well I guess.
The harbor is, and always has been a PIA to fish in. Too many weekend warriors. I’m more of a up the Wando or Cooper Redfishing / trout guy myself. The Jetties are OK if I feel like getting out a bit, and if I’m looking for sharks I’ll catch a few lady fish or small black sea bass there and go live bait fishing with them at near shore reef or outside Morris island. Always good for a small sand, little bull, or dogfish. I stay away from the grillage anymore when the Spanish Mackeral are running–too many boats and too many lost anchors there.
And I found years ago its cheaper (and much easier) to buy my shrimp at the Geechie Dock or MP seafood than dealing with mudballs, markers, nets, and mosquitos.
Concur that it is a pain, it was on the weekends 5 years ago – but I’ve been promising to make this trip for a long time. Fortunately, I have more than 30 days of leave coming and the older boys can miss a day of school. Once it warms up I’ll be back up in South Port where we traditionally do the salt water thing.
My degree is in marine science, I spent a little time on a “bug hunter”, I agree with you about shrimping. I’ll buy my shrimp at the dock or on a plate at 82 Queen or over on whatever the hell the name of the creek is across the bridge – it should have thawed out by then.
Wahoo and Macks like to circle the buoys …
This question is coming from someone who has caught small grouper in the Cooper, small Mangrove Snapper (castnet) in the Wando, above Highway 41, Spanish macs above 526 in the Wando, and a peanut dolphin in sight of the “C” buoy. Had a friend catch a vermilion snapper at the burnt-out bridge and TBG remembers a sailfish being caught at the “60”. TBG knows about Bluefin tuna and Great White Sharks near the Shipping Channel….
…
You meant to say, “Cobia and Macks like to circle the buoys…”, right?
RIGHT?
*ITBGHO fresh wahoo is the best tasting fish in the ocean*
It hasn’t been below a 2′ sea at any time in the harbor in 15+ years.
TBG is in absolute agreement that it has been much windier for the last 15 or so years than it was before.
I’m guessing we can blame that on “climate change”,amiright? And on the calm summer days there’s just too many damn boats…which i blame on too many yankees.
Couple more tips:
Sheephead fishing is good @ Capers reef in March and April. (Can FITS facilitate an email swap…don’t want to post ALL TBG’s secrets on an open forum.)
If you are ever chasing Spanish in the shipping channel, well outside the jetties (well past Nearshore, for that matter)…keep an eye on your depthfinder. Structure and deep holes will hold green head (legal) black sea bass. Drifting is best and *cut bait* will weed out most of the little ones.
A fleet of boats anchored away from the rocks between the jetties….indicates whiting (some good eats, there!). (Shrimp on a “Christmas tree” rig). If it’s late October and the fleet is off Sullivans @ the Intercoastal….the spots are running. (Shrimp or earthworms on a “Christmas tree” rig.
Yeah…TBG knows that the last paragraph is enough to make a fly fisherman’s head explode…..
Thanks for the tips man. I love fishing.
I’ll bet you love the smell of Mackerel.
You are an idiot. Bless your heart.
never heard that being done. spraying salt water on ice. interesting idea, but i guess it would have to be pretty salty water. long term it would play havoc with the structure, but i guess once or twice a decade wouldn’t hurt.
The technique is called “brining” because the salt water mixture they spray is “brine”, a highly concentrated salt and water mixture. The idea is to spray it on before the snow and as the snow sleet comes in contact, the salt mixes with the sleet/snow and lowers the freezing point thus melting the snow. Salt water freezes at 28 degrees. It’s a good technique in the south for just exactly what happened this week but it doesn’t last as long as “salt” (the salt is actually a mixture of several different chlorides with a number of “anti-clumping” chemicals mixed in) and it doesn’t provide traction like sand. It also won’t work in “severe cold”.
The “road mix” of salt will eat cars, bridges and concrete. It will also kill grass and plants on the road side.
Maybe the cities of Charleston and Mt. Pleasant can chip in and buy a salt brine truck together. Store it without tires…..they would dry rot before it’s needed again!
Spot on!
Not know too much about trucks, wouldn’t a dump truck, ostensibly used for other stuff when not snowing, be enough to at least dump some salt/sand as it drives over the bridge?
Even better, couldn’t the government just call up a local construction company and make something like that happen on a one or two time basis?
I think it’s a conspiracy to contain the Yankee invasion to Charleston. Now let’s shell the place and set up a blockade.
TOO LATE!!! They’ve already spread as far as Hilton Head and Santee. We’re outflanked, boys!!!
There are scattered reports that some have been skulking around Pelion and Salley.
YANKEES in Pelion!!!
Aunt Pitty Pat, fetch Bubba his smellin’ salts!
The locals are trying to flush them out of the woods….
Haven’t you seen the sign? Bridge ices before road. WOW !!!
Don Holt Bridge
…also known locally as “the Don Halt“.
So the locals are steaming mad, wait till you hear about angry parents in Atlanta .
Gotcha’..! I’ve got two daughters in Atlanta….
I thought so! You’re the shifty henry with two daughters in Atlanta!
She said you were, but I was skeptical.
“remained close due to ice”…what the fuck does that mean? Close to what? Are you an idiot?
I kept looking for sand and salt trucks on the Ravanel yesterday, last night and never saw any effort to try and clear it until this morning. Not sure why just seems like more could have been put torwards keeping it open.
Just goes to show you how much the government can’t do when mother nature takes over.
Try explaining that concept to the Global Warming zealots.
Who is complaining? Snow days are awesome and we never get them. Seriously. Must we strip all joy from every aspect of life? Why can’t people just be happy for a quick second? It’s ice. It’s one time. Who the fuck cares? Quit complaining and love it.
I guess in your world, it stops for weather. Sadly, it doesn’t for everyone.
I agree. In a day it will be melted and everything will go on as normal.
“I don’t think we’re going to change a whole lot,” former S.C. Rep. James Law, a department spokesman, told WCBD TV 2 (NBC – Charleston, S.C.). “We’ll go back and reassess everything we did and and the results we got, but we’ve done everything we possibly can do to keep the roadways open.”
TBG breaks it down:
“I don’t think we’re going to change a whole lot,” …………F*ck you, you whiny citizens. I ain’t going to rock the boat. The tallest blade of grass is the first chopped by the lawnmower. Lie on your back and think of England…
“We’ll go back and reassess everything we did and the results we got…” …… Nothing. Bridges froze over.
“..we’ve done everything we possibly can do to keep the roadways open.” …. ..except for put down salt and stuff..
TBG wonders if …just perhaps… our government believes it’s own BS and was unprepared because of “climate change”.
“Earth’s warmin’ up, boys…we won’t be needing them spreaders and piles of salt anymore,,,,,”
When you build a bridge over water – there will be ice… oyez, there will be ice!
Here in Texas, cops take turns blocking traffic and driving 5 miles an hour abreast on the frozen black ice through ways.
The Charleston County jail is full of strong young men and not a few women who could certainly wield a shovel and would benefit from some time out in the fresh air. A few dumptrucks full of sand and 20 or 30 of them boys and you got yourself some bridge sanding going on.
This could be a good reason for having chain gangs. They have the tools and folks who are willing to work — give them 2 days off their sentence for each day outside (or maybe 1 day if only out for 1/2 day).
You have to admire his honesty, he admitted to his apathy and laziness.
I would have been “steaming mad” if they did salt the bridge and I had to go to work. When will the “lucky” few employed people ever get a free happy day ever again? NEVER. That’s when, because we have to go to work every day for the rest of ours freaking lives to provide for everyone else. I am not at all concerned about spending the money we pay to salt my path to hell. This is the closest thing to a miracle I’ve had in a long time. I say keep that bitch frozen!
With the advent of telecommuting, there is no day, or night, or any other time “off”. Even scheduled vacation days (and seemingly, ESPECIALLY scheduled vacation days).
And my employer would be the first to tell me (and has) that if I don’t like the fact I am on call 24x7x365 (for no $$ incentive) that there are 100 others waiting in line to take my job.
And sadly, they are quite correct.
Russell Guerard has learned to never let a good crisis go to waste.
Dear SPAWAR Atlantic informational “observers”….how should this article and comments be used to illustrate and “convict” the Bridge “situation” to the same Chris Christie bridge lane closure political capitalization.?
How should Nancy Mace use this against Lindsey Graham for NOT calling out the same tactics BEFORE the ice fiasco to inform citizens of what is going to actually happen based upon historical political “actions”:
Spawar Atlantic workers….how should this article be used via government email to be sent to Captain Burin as an example of “Informational Dominance and Awareness”.
Heck, how should the be used in a court of law and class action lawsuit against Hugh Leatherman for mentioning GAS TAX increases at the same time as a Senatorial DEBATE is happening.
( Boomerang Jim Cantore knee preparedness drillz on camera )
What the F is with you and SPAWAR? Jesus H Christ let it go.
“Norma” ….you get a GOLD Star for your reverb. Matter of fact, you deserve to be sitting next to NORM at the “Cheers” bar…..
Get the government out of my life!!! It is the governments fault the roads have snow and ice. Make up your mind…do you want the government out of the way to let the free market sort it out or do you want to have to rely on the government to tell you when to stay home and off the roads?
Dont confuse these so called “libertarians” here with the facts.
or, good sense.
Article #1: “This snowstorm didn’t cause many problems.” Article #2: “OMG CHARLESTON IN CRISIS DUE TO WINTER WEATHER!!!”
Got it.
When I consider John Graham Altman opining on replacing Grace and Pearman bridges, a low causeway, with a drawbridge would have cost far less and been less susceptible to the icing conditions. OTOH, how conveniently Jim Hodges didn’t file for federal dollars that ol’ Fritz had promised, now leaves how many more years of a local option sales tax to retire the debt, though those funds seem to be diverted to “green space” deals… follow the $$$$ maybe bigger scandal than you Innovista
Here’s a chart for picking your sidewalk salt
http://www.mortonsalt.com/content/pdfs/Morton_For_Your_Home-Snow_and_Ice-About_Ice_Melters.pdf
Spreading salt on the Ravenel Bridge is not a smart idea.
They need to use a non-corrosive deicer on that bridge.
They sell it, and it’s not that much more than salt.
The reason is: the Ravenel Bridge is already having massive corrosion problems.
The last thing it needs is salt just poured all over the decks.
You can’t blame this one on Christie..!!
I blame Bush.
NIKKI HALEY ONLY CARES ABOUT NIKKI HALEY!
She also voids where prohibited…..
Meanwhile, Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta for the last four years shutdown the whole county when he ordered everyone to go home Tuesday…at the same time! People are still stranded in their cars. Students are still sleeping in their schools. The thoroughfares around Atlanta are still dysfunctional…all on account of 2 inches of snow! Shoot, the Weather Channel’s studios are in Atlanta! To put this in context, he was Mayor during the 2011 ice storm in Atlanta and they are still towing cars from that one. WTF?
Just another egomaniacal slo-mo shufflefoot …..
Explain to me how any Mayor , can “order” everyone in a city to do anything?
Plain as day whats needed here!
A Tax Cut!
If someone in the private sector was charged with taking care of a section of road, regardless of the conditions, and didn’t do the job….they would lose the job.
So from that perspective, a tax cut in the face of blatant incompetence would appear to make perfect sense.
They would?
You dont know much about SC.There are road contractors all over this state who screw roads up over and over,yet somehow continue to land contracts.
I mean I know lots of you are such fervent believers in private enterprise that you just reflexively mouth this stuff off all the time,but,in the case of roadwork?
Private companies screw up all the time and keep getting state contracts over and over.
You need to find a new example!
“Private companies screw up all the time and keep getting state contracts over and over.”
Probably because the are owned by Leatherman or spreading money around to a connected pol.
Nothing about road work is “free market” or private sector.
CRISIS OVER..The Ravenel is opened back up now.
But its still misting here in Mt P..and sitting at 32 degrees.
um, yeah. Giant concrete structure high above frigid water, exposed to below freezing temperatures during a snow storm. SCDOT probably kept the bridge closed to protect it from you dumbasses.
Pouring salt on the Cooper River Bridge defeats the entire purpose of the 644 million dollar project. The salt will corrode the concrete rebar making the driving deck unusable. The good news is that a hurricane, earthquake or a collision with a ship won’t bring it down…just can’t drive on it once the salt corrosion reaches critical mass. Still, it does look pretty even though eventually salt corrosion will close down the driving lanes.
The price for that bridge was $600 mil. paid by the taxpayers. Still in warranty. They were afraid not to do something that may contravene with the warranty agreement. It took the government employees a few days to go through the contracts and determine what is the proper way to throw salt on it. And that’s another example of your government hard at work for you, or course.
And now the ice falls from those diamonds local mayors had to have… attractive nuisance anyone?
Ravenel Bridge closed again due to falling ice.
What the hell are Haley and the DOT supposed to do to keep those massive ice chunks from falling off those cables and smashing windshields?