(The Center Square) – Erin, once a Category 5 hurricane over the weekend that more than doubled wind speed to nearly 160 mph, on Monday morning remained on a path to miss landfall of the United States though not without forcing evacuations in North Carolina.

At 8 a.m., the Category 4 hurricane was just east of the southeastern Bahamas, the National Weather Center said, about 115 miles north-northeast of the Grand Turk Islands, and about 890 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras. Erin was moving northwest at 13 mph, forecast to be going north by Wednesday morning while parallel to the Florida panhandle.

Erin had 75 mph maximum winds Friday at 11 a.m., a Category 1, and 24 hours later was near 160 mph and Category 5. It has since gone to a Category 3 before gaining more intensity.

On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, Category 1 is 74-95 mph, Category 2 is 96-110, Category 3 is major and 111-129 mph, Category 4 is 130-156 mph, and Category 5 is greater than 157 mph. While the most-often characterization of Atlantic basin cyclones, the scale is without context on storm surge – a key factor in damage at landfall.

Dare County on Sunday declared an emergency with evacuations ordered for Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks. N.C. 12, the famed 148-mile roadway linking peninsulas and islands of the Outer Banks, is likely to go under water and parts could wash away – as often happens with hurricanes.

NC12 begins at U.S. 70 at the community of Sea Level and runs to a point just north of Corolla and south of the Currituck Banks North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. Two ferries, Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island and Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island, are part of the route.

Nearly all of North Carolina’s 301-mile coastline is within the outer wind field projection from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center. The greatest speed, however, is 20 mph.

Erin’s rapid intensity is among the greatest on record, and particularly so for prior to Sept. 1. Hurricane force winds (74 mph) extend 60 miles from its center.

By midnight Thursday into Friday, the storm is expected to be past a point parallel to the Virginia-North Carolina border and gaining speed away from the coast.

The storm’s miss of the state is particularly welcome in light of Hurricane Helene. Recovery from that storm is in its 47th week. Helene killed 107 in the state, 236 across seven states in the South, and caused an estimated $60 billion in damage to North Carolina.

In my career, I’ve often considered myself a professional pesterer.

As journalists, we have a license — and a responsibility — to pursue information vigorously, to the point of being obnoxious at times. Often, it takes a while to get said information, but that’s part of the job.

I bring all this up because back in mid-June when I wrote about how long the I-26 Connector project is taking — it started in 2019 — a reader sent in some excellent follow-up questions regarding crashes in the construction zone. He wanted to know how many accidents had occurred in the work zone over the past five years, compared to the five years before the project, and if there had been deaths.

I sent the query off to the North Carolina Department of Transportation in June, and I got the answers back last week. In the interim, I might’ve sent a few reminders. OK, more than a few.

I’m not complaining about the time frame, as it’s a lot of data to plow through, but I do like readers to know I haven’t forgotten them. 

To be honest, I expected wrecks to be higher, as this is almost always the case in construction zones. Anytime you’re driving through walls of Jersey barriers on a narrowed interstate, especially with drivers who refuse to slow down, crashes are going to go up.

And they have.

“Yes, the number of crashes increased during construction compared to the five years prior to construction — just as you expected, we expected, and we all discussed during a media event prior to groundbreaking in 2019,” NCDOT spokesperson David Uchiyama told me via email when delivering the stats. “At that event, we also highlighted the anticipated benefits of two new tools that help traffic flow — a towing contract for I-26 and detour routes that have helped save an unknown number of lives, reduced potential congestion and improved travel times.”

The other tool was a Traffic Management System that improved monitoring, crash response times and traffic flow, especially with detours.

It’s fair enough for Uchiyama to tout these tools, although it’s impossible to quantify the number of lives saved or injuries prevented. Also, these steps are great, but I’ve said before and I’ll say again that the work zone, particularly in Buncombe County, has had some truly difficult zig-zaggy temporary lanes for motorists to navigate, not to mention a couple of places where the Jersey walls jut out a bit.

I’ll also point out that the widening project in Henderson County is now essentially finished, but Buncombe has two more years to go. More about that in a minute.

But let’s get to the numbers. As you can see in the chart below, there have been a total of 2,897 crashes during construction, a 39 percent increase over the previous five years. Four fatal crashes have occurred during the construction period, a 33 percent decline from the previous five years.

That’s good news on the fatalities, but clearly we’re dealing with a lot of crashes. The reasons for the increase come as no shock.

“A reduction in shoulder width and lane width creates less escape room for drivers,” Uchiyama said.

I drive I-26 pretty much every day. I’ve witnessed at least three wrecks on this stretch of road during the widening project, and I expect to see more. I’ve also had to completely lock up my brakes to avoid a collision at least twice.

Pro-tip: When you see tire smoke ahead of you, slow down immediately – hard. Someone is smoking their tires because they slammed on the brakes.

My tips for navigating I-26 safely

I can also offer a few other observations and tips:

• For the love of living another day so you can text your friend about your afternoon plans, please put your cell phone away while you’re driving. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone drifting in their lane, or into mine, and when I pull up to pass they’re actively texting. 

It can wait, especially when you’re walled in by concrete barriers. If you have to change your Spotify playlist, at least do it when you’re in the clear and not ping-ponging between concrete. I witnessed one guy, in a very nice car, drift into the right side Jersey barrier not once but twice, scraping the bejeepers out of his door and rear quarter panel, because he couldn’t resist the allure of the phone.

• Slow down! Every day I drive I-26 I’m amazed at how fast people drive. Full disclosure: I’m not one to cling to the exact speed limit, but I do try to stay within 10 mph or so of it. 

But I routinely see people whizzing by me like Brad Pitt in the movie “F1,” sometimes weaving in and out of lanes like they’ve got a $1 million purse on the line. It ain’t worth getting there three minutes faster if you’re dead or maimed, folks. And you’re endangering the lives of everyone else out there.

• Truckers, can you move over? I realize these work zones are problematic, and heading up the grade to the Blue Ridge Parkway crossover sneaks up on semi drivers, but trucks in the left lane really throw a wrench in traffic flow. 

By now, with all the phone apps and GPS gizmos on the market, truckers have to know when slowdowns, work zones and big hills are coming. As George Thorogood famously sang, “Move it on over!” (Original props to Hank Williams, of course).

• Be courteous, or at least civil, particularly when lanes narrow and other drivers need to merge. I’ve been known to disregard courtesy at times myself, because, well, it’s tough to be polite to a doofus drifting into your lane while texting. But I’ve also found letting loose with the middle finger salute really doesn’t do much to improve the situation. Apparently, it’s not a de-escalation tool, as one of my older brothers taught me when I was learning to drive. 

The merge issue is particularly key in all this, as lanes now decline from the Long Shoals area into Buncombe County. You’re going to have an experience where someone waited too long to merge and still needs to get in. Sure, give them a disappointed look verging on annoyance, but just let them move into the flow. Again, not worth the rage, or the body shop repair bill.

I’ve found it’s best in life to avoid road rage, or really any kind of rage at all, when possible. Think about this: Do you really want to enter into some kind of permanent relationship with the lunatic who just cut you off, via criminal charges or a potential lawsuit? Didn’t think so. Do not engage. Your future self will thank you.

Federal statistics on work zone crash data seem to mirror my experience.

For work zone crashes in 2021, 23 percent involved a rear-end collision, 33 percent involved a commercial motor vehicle, and in 32 percent of crashes speeding was a factor, according to the Federal Highway Administration. For 2022, 21 percent involved a rear-end collision, 30 percent a commercial vehicle and 34 percent speeding.

I bring all this up because we have a couple more years of dealing with the widening project, not to mention the I-26 Connector project closer into Asheville. Road construction will be a part of our lives for many years to come.

The widening of I-26 through Buncombe and Henderson counties, a $534 million project that started in October 2019, initially was scheduled to wrap up in 2024. The NCDOT had to push it back to this year, then to 2026…and then to July 2027. 

These latest delays are mostly because of the addition of Exit 35, which came more than half way through the project and which will lead to the Pratt & Whitney aircraft parts plant. The NCDOT previously noted that this new exit will include an additional bridge and multiple retaining walls, and those additions increased the overall project timeline by almost two years.

The Connector, which has been in discussions around here since the 1980s, has started. The NCDOT said earlier this summer that some right-of-way acquisition started in 2019, but most of the property acquisition for the main sections through Asheville will begin this fall and be done by the end of 2027.

The Connector, as it sounds like, will connect sections of I-26 north and south of downtown, bypassing the current setup that makes motorists traverse I-240 and the Capt. Jeff Bowen Bridge. By the way, the NCDOT’s official I-26 Connector project page lists the completion date as October 2031, so I’m not joking when I say we’re going to be dealing with traffic and construction woes for the coming decade.

And that of course means more narrowed lanes, more crashes and more tow trucks plying the interstate.

Quick response by wrecker crews

I will say that when I have seen crashes on the interstate, the wrecker crews have responded quickly to remove damaged vehicles and clear the scene. Towing crews, including a heavy wrecker for 18-wheelers, are placed at strategic locations in the work zone, making them ready for immediate response.

“The towing contract has been so successful that other NCDOT divisions across the state are implementing the concept, including work zones on I-95 out east and our I-40 reconstruction in the Pigeon River Gorge,” Uchiyama said. “The result is a quicker crash clearance time, less time lost by others stuck in the queue behind the crash, and a reduced risk of secondary crashes.”

Uchiyama also sent data on the towing program, noting that response times to crashes have improved from an average 6.85 minutes to 3.74 minutes. Also, the average clearance time for crashes has ranged from 32.92 minutes to 17.5 minutes during the past five years.

As Uchiyama mentioned, the Asheville NCDOT office also implemented the Mountain Traffic Management System and a Traffic Management Center for the widening project. The center “enters Traffic Incident Management System reports (notifications about crashes), dispatches the motorist assistance trucks to stranded drivers, monitors camera feeds, operates overhead message boards, and establishes detour information and manages traffic signal systems,” among other duties.”

This system has worked well, and let’s hope it continues to do so. 

We’ve got a long way to go with these projects, and unfortunately, a lot more crashes.

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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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