Tending Bridges

Story by Verne Strickland

Photography by Justin Pearson & Luke Worley

The day Mary Barrett’s front door became frozen shut, she knew it was time to leave Vermont.

“That did it. I had to go. I quit. And I moved south,” she says. “I haven’t looked back since.”

But the warm weather didn’t warm up the attitudes of some of the people she dealt with in her customer-relations job in Wilmington. She had another adjustment to make. She landed a job as a bridge operator on the CapeFearMemorialBridge. That was about four years ago. She likes what she’s doing.

Brenda Steed, meanwhile, had wearied of her job in a factory near Buffalo. She needed a change. Goodbye frostbite and tedium. She headed toward the equator, stopping short in coastal North Carolina, settling in Wilmington.

About the same time that Mary Barrett became a bridge operator, Brenda answered an ad in the local paper for the same type of position. She was hired after 80 hours of training and familiarization – the NCDOT requirement for applicants. The two women met on the job and became fast friends. They are two of the four full-time operators of the MemorialBridge span. The other two full-time operators are men.

The responsibility of an operator is to safely and efficiently raise and lower the draw bridge – one of two accesses in Wilmington between New Hanover and BrunswickCounty.

In engineering parlance, the CapeFearMemorialBridge is called a “vertical lift bridge”. Built in 1969 (do the math — it turns 40 this year), the structure is currently the highest bridge in North Carolina. The four-lane traffic deck can be raised to a height of 135 feet above the river surface, depending on the tides. Counterweights in the towers facilitate the lifting process.

The nerve center of the system is a stark, steel box–like structure 30 feet above the bridge roadway. The

office — or bridge house — is reached by a set of sketchy (to a first-time visitor) stairs through which the river can be seen farther below than you might find comfortable. Windows in the control booth offer a direct view of the river and the roadway. A panel of video monitors reinforces the visibility of vehicular and river traffic.

When a commercial vessel or pleasure craft approaches and needs extra clearance, the on-duty  operator raises the bridge by operating an electronic control board situated under a panel of video monitors. This is in response to a call via two-way radio from a commercial ship or a sailboat with a tall mast. Ships are asked to make contact at least an hour before the bridge must be raised.

“Sometimes we don’t get that much warning,” Mary says. “But when we are alerted, our routine is to first turn on the red lights down on the roadway to stop traffic, then lower the gates. The operator also has to leave the booth and go down the stairs to make sure there’s nothing on the span, either a vehicle or a person. We don’t raise the bridge if there’s anything on it. If it’s all clear, we blow the horn and start raising the deck.”

While it may seem longer to drivers stuck in traffic, the average time required to open the bridge, usher

through a ship or sailboat and close it again, is usually less than fifteen minutes. Motorists also might have the impression that the bridge is constantly going up and down, but it averages only about ten to 15 openings per month nowadays. That’s about half the monthly activity tallied by a DOT bridge log for 2008. Mary speculates that the economy has affected business transportation on the river.

A tall sailing ship passing under the span this year was so close to having its masts broken that a sailor had been positioned atop the highest mast, holding a long stick at arm’s length over his head to check clearance. The vintage vessel made it without incident, and the traffic deck did not have to be raised.

Brenda said they have been aware of no collisions with the bridge on their watch. But occasionally they hold their breath as a particularly big ship passes through.

“If the highest part of the superstructure is over 135 feet above the water, you can kiss it goodbye. Maybe us too,” she says.

Both Mary and Brenda get calls from irate people who ring the bridge control booth to air their displeasure as they stew in a traffic pile-up. These ladies — one a charming if no-nonsense grandma, the other a good-natured, level-headed transplant — are trained to keep their cool. And they are not

rattled by the sometimes shrill and harried voices on the other end of the line, even if they don’t always like what they hear.

“Most people are polite and just want to know what’s holding traffic up,” Mary explains. “We’re always glad to give out that information. It seems to soothe their nerves just to get an explanation.”

In addition to the expected calls to the bridge house by drivers whose commute has been interrupted, there is the occasional excitement due to an emergency.

“The worst experiences for us, in addition to some bad traffic accidents, are the jumpers or near- jumpers,” Mary comments. She saw one woman leap into the river, but Mary immediately called

911, reported the incident and directed rescuers to the woman in distress. Due to Mary’s quick action,

the woman was pulled from the water and survived. “That was awful to see,” she confesses. “It really got to me.”

Brenda was on duty when a man threatened to jump, but after an hour and a half of suspense, he decided not to. He suffered a heart attack after he was grabbed by authorities.

“I had a ship out there waiting the whole time before the man gave up and surrendered to rescuers,” she adds. “Emergencies take priority over everything else, even a big ocean-going ship.”

Then there was the time a pig came up the ramp onto the bridge. Occasional stray dogs might decide they’d rather use MemorialBridge than swim across the CapeFear. Again, a 911 call quickly solves the problem.

On the positive side of the ledger, there’s the built-in entertainment factor that comes with being perched up high above the expanse of the river, with the city, the streets and highways, marshes

and savannahs stretching to the horizon.

“I think the most beautiful time is during thunderstorms,” Mary offers. “The lightning is fabulous, a brilliant show. And the sunrises and sunsets are also gorgeous from up here. Not many people get to enjoy these things, and they’re special to us as well.”

For Brenda, evening fireworks on the riverfront during special celebrations are a particular treat. “We have the best seats in the house for that,” she says. “All these things are nice advantages of

working up here.”

But it gets really trying sometimes. A pet peeve, with much justification, is when anonymous vandals throw rocks, bricks and other missiles at their vehicles, which are parked in special spaces just off the traffic lanes of the bridge.

“We park right by the stairway that takes us up to the control booth,” says Brenda. “Our personal vehicles are an obvious target. Mary and I both have had our windows broken out. It’s a doggone shame. We’re just doing our job and somebody gets mad and we catch the brunt of it. It’s mean, when we go down there and find a car window broken.”

The prospect of a new high span bridge across the river south of the current structure is gaining serious consideration, but the Cape Fear Skyway is only in the early planning stages, and years away from

becoming reality.

“Whenever that is, I don’t know if we’ll still be working then, but a new bridge won’t cost us our jobs either way,” Brenda speculates. “They say the MemorialBridge will be kept, so the ships and boats will still need to come through. And a bridge tender will have to be on duty to work the span.”

Mary adds, with a chuckle, “We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”