First Responder Friday: Spartanburg County Roads & Bridges

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (WSPA) – Johnny Ravan has been working for the Spartanburg County Roads and Bridges Department for 50 years.

“I built or replaced just about every bridge on our country roads,” he told us. However, Ravan had never seen anything like what Tropical Storm Helene brought on September 27.

“I’ve never seen a storm hit the whole county and this hard,” said Ravan. “We rode around that Friday, just checking things out. We’re looking at each other thinking we’re going to be months getting this cleaned up.”

Spartanburg Roads and Bridges went to work. Some outside contractors gave the department 22 crews to go to work in 12-hour shifts.

“(Crew members are) just old country boys,” Ravan called them, “they know it’s their job. We don’t have to tell them what to do. They know what it is.”

The work was difficult in the early days. Ravan said some crews would cut some trees off the road, only to get blocked in after trees fell down behind them and twisted in power lines.

“We’re not licensed to work around power. We’re not trained to work around power,” Ravan told 7NEWS.

Those crews kept working and got the job done. “Last Friday (October 4) our crews – along with contract crews – we had all the roads open.”

Spartanburg County Roads and Bridges have started the next phase of dealing with the storm. It has a fleet of trucks out to collect storm debris that homeowners have left on the street in front of their property. Ravan said they’re coming to your street.

“We’re here to serve the citizens and that’s what we’re going to do.”

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