THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 7, 1995 TAG: 9501070222
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COLINGTON ISLAND LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
I usually leave for work a little later than I should, so I need to keep moving on the road. Coming home, I'm even more anxious to get where I'm going. But this week, I've had to wait going both ways.
On my way home at 8:30 Thursday night, I sat on Colington Road for more than a half-hour as a hooded flagman held a stop sign in front of me and road crews peeled up the pavement on my left. I kept thinking about my dogs, who had been indoors since 7 a.m. and who were undoubtedly destroying my carpets.
I didn't think of the highway worker who stood shivering in the 20-degree dark - and had been outside since daybreak.
On my way to work Friday, the same flagman stopped me again near Bridges Seafood. Fed up with waiting, I decided to see what was going on. I pulled my car off the two-lane blacktop and approached the by-now-familiar flagman.
``Hi. I'm from the newspaper. I just wanted to know what you guys are doing,'' I said.
``Hey, you know what?'' the young highway worker asked, smiling. ``That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.''
Most of the 16 men working on Colington Road drive almost two hours to get to work by dawn. They shovel ditches, run backhoes and lay metal drainage pipe outdoors until almost midnight. Residents of Plymouth, Roper, Englehard, Camden and the Currituck County mainland, the state highway construction laborers commuted to the Outer Banks this week.
They're trying to improve and widen the most heavily traveled secondary road in northeastern North Carolina.
But many motorists resent their work.
Some drivers yell obscenities out of their windows at the road crews. From inside their heated cars, sipping steaming coffee and listening to the radio, Colington Island residents cuss at highway workers who were knee-deep in rancid sludge. Other motorists thrust fists at the workers, flipped up their middle fingers, and yelled threats about suing the state.
``One person starts blowing their horn at us, then everybody joins in. Another woman hollered at me to get out of her way,'' 25-year-old flagman Duck Young of Roper said Friday. ``We can't do anything to stop it, though. They blame all the delays on us. I guess it's just part of a day's work.''
Road crew member Tyronne Downing agreed. The 28-year-old Plymouth resident said he doesn't like to look at passing motorists because they're usually so upset. When acting as flagman, he said, he tries to keep his back to the drivers.
``I try not to let it bother me. But sometimes it's hard,'' Downing said Friday on Colington Road. ``They don't know why they're mad - or at who. So we get it, 'cause we're out here.''
Although the highway workers said they attempt to ignore motorists' jeers and jabs, most admitted the harassment was annoying. Road crews don't decide which streets to tear up, or when, or how. They just accept assignments from the N.C. Department of Transportation - and work long, hard hours in terrible conditions to complete them.
Road crews have to work outside in rain, sleet and dark while drivers cruise by in temperature-controlled comfort. Highway workers have to wade up to their waists in muck to clear drainage ditches. Supervisors sacrifice Christmas weekends to clear sand and open storm-closed roads.
Highway construction crews work 12 to 16 hour days so other people can get home more quickly and safely.
Like their signs say, they deserve a break from the public they serve.
They also deserve a hand - not a finger. by CNB