One Person Killed in Tragic Crash on I-16

Last week, the Bulloch County commissioners gave out two contracts: one for $924,900 to replace a culvert that looks like a bridge on Nevils-Denmark Road and one for $387,300 to design a new bridge to replace a closed one on Cypress Lake Road. They also put in for a $2.25 million state grant that should more than cover the cost of the project.

Because of the damage to the tunnel caused by Tropical Storm Debby in August, a part of Nevils-Denmark Road just south of State Route 46 has been closed. In a separate event, a part of Cypress Lake Road that was previously very busy has been closed since an accident on February 25 evening when a car hit the 50-year-old Dry Branch Bridge. Brad Deal talked about these steps to reopening both roads at his last meeting as county engineer on April 15 at a meeting of the commissioners. Deal quit his job with the county on Friday after seven years. He is now back at work for the city of Statesboro, this time as the head of public works and engineering.

With a 6-0 vote, the commissioners approved the building contract to Reeves building for the Nevils-Denmark Road work. The 120-day project is on track to meet Assistant County Engineer Ron Nelson’s earlier prediction that the road could be open by late summer. During the April 15 meeting, interim County Manager Randy Tillman also said that Nelson, who had retired from the Georgia Department of Transportation, would now be the temporary county engineer.

For now, the county’s Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST) money will pay for the replacement of the tunnel at Nevils and Denmark. But the engineers said that the county has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency and GEMA, which is the state-level equivalent of FEMA, for money to help with disaster recovery.

Deal told the commissioners, “We are still going through the process with FEMA and GEMA.” “Everything points to the fact that we will get more than half of the cost of this project back. We still don’t have the exact numbers from them, but we’re still going to use T-SPLOST funds to move forward with the project.

Commissioner Nick Newkirk asked how this job is similar to the drainage work that was done on Brannen Pond Road before this one. Following damage to the road from a hurricane in August 2023, that job took a long time to study and plan. But once the job was given to a building company, it was finished early, about 15 months after the storm.

Deal said, “Very much the same.” “This contract lasts for 120 days, which I think is the same as Brannen-Pond Road. The only change is that this box culvert will be cast in place instead of the precast one at Brannen Pond Road [project difference]. That might change the price a little, but not the plan too much.

Reeves is going to build a “triple-barrel” culvert with three 8-by-7-foot channels on Nevils-Denmark Road. The old “double-barrel” culvert with its two 6-by-10-foot sections settled and rotated a little, breaking the pavement. The new culvert will have “wing walls” on either side, just like the old one. But there will also be a “apron” below the tunnel to stop erosion there.

The county got four secret bids, and Reeves’ was the lowest at $924,900. Prices from the three businesses went from $1.1 million to $1.44 million. Reeves will have to take down the old culvert and fix up the damaged sidewalk. He will also have to build the new structure, do the excavation and paving, and put up the guardrails.

Deal said that the money from FEMA and GEMA should fully cover “the cost of putting it back the way it was.” However, the county’s plan goes beyond that by making improvements that will make it stronger for future storms.

Road to Cypress Lake

FEMA will not pay to fix the damage to the bridge over Dry Branch on Cypress Lake Road because it was caused by a car accident. But the county has found a way to get money from the state.

According to what Deal told the commissioners, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is giving counties and towns more money, which is called “supplemental.” Local governments get money every year called Local Maintenance and Improvement Grants (LMIG). The county uses this money to resurface and pave roads. But both last year and this year, the governor and the legislature have given extra money to local governments through Local Road Assistance grants. These grants are based on the same method as LMIG: the number of miles of roads and people living in a county or city.

Deal said that Bulloch County can get $2,247,332. As he suggested and the commissioners agreed with another 6-0 vote, the county will apply for it and say that the project they want to do is to repair and improve the bridge on Cypress Lake Road.

Deal said, “We didn’t expect to get this money.” Since we didn’t know it was going to happen, we thought it would be a good use of these funds to help with something we didn’t expect.

Newkirk asked if the bridge could be rebuilt for $2.2 million like the county experts want it to be.

Deal said, “Right now, based on our very early, very rough estimates, we think it would be less than that amount.”

He said that any extra GDOT money given to Bulloch County could be used for another project.

Contract to design a bridge

A $378,300 deal was also made with the Marietta-based company Heath & Lineback Engineers for engineering and design work on the new Cypress Lake Road bridge. A hydrology study, a geotechnical investigation, plans, and environmental permits are all part of the work that will be done.

The county staff chose this company because they liked their work and didn’t ask other companies for bids or quotes.

Deal was asked by Chairman David Bennett to explain why the county didn’t need to ask for bids right now. Deal said that the planning and design work is a “professional service,” which means that the county’s buying policy doesn’t call for bids. There are different rules for construction, and bids must be sealed. A call for proposals, or RFP, is often used to find people to create a project. But people who work for the county knew about the firm’s work because it had replaced bridges for other counties. “We thought Heath and Lineback were qualified…” And this would make the process much faster because we wouldn’t have to go through the two- to three-month buying process,” Deal said.

Still closed for two years?

But that didn’t make the total time frame shorter from what he had said before about how long that part of Cypress Lake Road might be closed and detoured.

He said, “We do think it will take two years.” “With the environmental permit, there is some that is unknown.” It does take some time to do that.

In this case too, the goal is to build back better. The 50-year-old bridge is temporarily closed, but the GDOT had lowered the vehicle weight limit to eight tonnes, or 16,000 pounds. This is the lowest limit of any bridge in Bulloch County, and local officials say that farm equipment and dump trucks that are heavier than that have crossed it in the past.

The experts want to build a new bridge that doesn’t limit weight. (Every bridge has a potential weight limit, but for “unrestricted” bridges, this limit is higher than the axles’ rated capacity.) Two lines of traffic would be 12 feet wide on each side, and there would also be a 6.5-foot shoulder on each side. There would also be barrier walls and guardrails.

Deal said, “I think it would work much better for the traffic that goes through that area.”