Bridge along hurricane evacuation route to I-95 reopens

It just got easier to get out of Beaufort County should a hurricane threaten.

The S.C. 462 bridge - along a key evacuation route between U.S. 278 in greater Bluffton and I-95 just north of Ridgeland - reopened May 27. The bridge, which rises over Euhaw Creek in Jasper County, is back in business after five months of construction work by S.C. Department of Transportation contractors.

The project, which replaced the original structure built in 1964, began in January and was initially set to wrap up later this summer. But SCDOT officials opted to “accelerate the (construction) time frame,” SCDOT engineer Kevin Turner said Wednesday.

“We made a commitment to make sure the evacuation route was passable and open by hurricane season,” he said.

The season officially began Wednesday.

Several roadways in the Ridgeland area, including a stretch of I-95, were closed earlier this week due to flooding caused by Tropical Storm Bonnie.

Prior to the bridge’s reopening, drivers who took exit 28 on I-95 toward the Bluffton and Hilton Head Island areas were forced to take detours around Euhaw Creek.

The primary detour more than doubled the distance from the exit to U.S. 278 from just over 12 miles to nearly 26 miles, Turner said.

“The length of the detour was a contributing factor to try to narrow that construction window,” he said.

The bridge closure wasn’t just a hassle for drivers. Just ask some of the business owners along S.C. 462.

Oregon Cooler owns Cooler’s Grocery, a small shop and gas station about a quarter-mile north of the Euhaw Creek bridge.

She said Wednesday that the five-month bridge closure “certainly didn’t help business.”

Since the bridge just reopened last week, she said it is hard to say whether business has fully rebounded. But Cooler expects the extra traffic that will now drive past the store to boost sales.

The Euhaw Creek bridge reconstruction effort was part of a larger SCDOT project to improve S.C. 462.

That project, which included reconstructing a bridge over Bees Creek, cost about $4.7 million, Turner said.

This story was originally published June 1, 2016 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Bridge along hurricane evacuation route to I-95 reopens."