If you have suffered an injury at work or on the job, you may be entitled to receive additional benefits through workers compensation. In North Carolina, this may include time lost from work, disability (full or partial), and medical bills.
The second Oak Island bridge is still slated to open by the end of the month, but transportation officials are holding on to the option of opening only two of its lanes.
The $36.6 million bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway is about 10 months behind schedule, but the N.C. Department of Transportation remains optimistic that the week’s massive rainfall won’t set the opening date back any further.
If it looks like construction won’t be completely done by the end of October, the department might open just the inside lanes so work can continue.
“That is an option we’ve looked at,” said DOT Resident Engineer Wayne Currie. “Right now we’re shooting to get the whole thing open.”
If that option is used, the outside two lanes would be closed while machines are used to clear supports from under the bridge, Currie said.
While the department does not plan to go that route at this point, it would not be an unusual arrangement, NCDOT spokeswoman Jennifer Garifo said.
“It’s obviously not preferred,” she said. “We want to have everything open, but it has happened in the past.”
Garifo said a date has still not been set to open the bridge to traffic.
Construction was first delayed on the Oak Island bridge after a worker was killed in a December 2008 accident. It was set back again when cracks were found in some beams.
The DOT has been withholding $5,000 per day it is late from the contractor in charge of the project, Barnhill Contracting Co. of Tarboro.
The Sunset Beach bridge, which also has seen delays, was set to be formally dedicated Friday – but it is still not ready to be opened to traffic.
The $31 million high-rise bridge was originally scheduled to be opened in May, but officials quickly pushed back the completion date and said it would open in September.
It is now on track to open by the end of October.
But plans for the dedication, which coincided with the town’s annual Sunset at Sunset celebration, had been in the works for months, Garifo said.
The ceremony’s agenda included speakers to honor the man the bridge is named after, Mannon C. Gore.
Gore bought the island in 1955 and built the original pontoon bridge from the mainland to the island in 1961. He is responsible for the town’s early development, which was continued by his son and grandson.
Gore’s son, Ed Gore, was scheduled to receive a replica sign from DOT officials and respond on behalf on the family.
A State Department of Transportation Dump Truck, pulling a large trailer carrying a steam roller, lost control on a mountain road, crossed the center-line and struck Kelly Crabtree’s van head-on...
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