MDOT presents “The Extra Mile” with Paul and Waverly.

Welcome in to another episode of The Extra Mile podcast. I’m your host Paul Katool and I’m joined by my cohost Waverly McCarthy. How’s it going, Waverly? It’s pretty good, Paul. How are you? I’m doing awesome and super excited about today’s episode. You know, we put a lot of time, effort and work into this. We were definitely rewarded by the first episode. Lots of listeners. Lots of listeners. Lots of downloads. And we’re super excited about today’s episode. Yeah. We’ve got some really great guests this week. We’ve got MDOT Deputy Executive Director and Chief Engineer Brian Ratliff. We talked with him about work zone safety and his experience here at MDOT. He’s been here 25 years. Wow. A lot of roads have been paved in that time and it was really cool to get to hear his experience. No doubt and we’re hearing from one of our own in Public Affairs, Central District Public Information Officer Michael Flood. He’s got a lot of updates to give us on projects like Hwy 49 in Rankin County, I-20 in Jackson and some others in district three. Yeah. You definitely don’t want to miss that one. Nope. So let’s not waste any more time. You ready, Paul? Let’s go.

Joining us is Brian Ratliff, MDOT Deputy Executive Director and Chief Engineer. Welcome in, Brian. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Brian, you’ve been with MDOT quite a long time. You’re no doubt an MDOT guy and really invested in what we do here. Can you take us through the different roles you’ve had here at Mississippi DOT? Sure. I graduated from Mississippi State with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1996. I started with the department straight out of college. I started out at the Whitfield Project Office as an engineer in training. I got my experience and passed the professional engineering exam and became resident engineer over the Whitfield Project Office, which oversees construction projects in Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties. After that I was promoted to district engineer for District Five. It’s in Newton. Headquarters are in Newton. Basically, it was over a 10-county area in the central to east central Mississippi and stayed there for about four and a half years and got promoted to Chief Engineer back in November 2019 and have been serving as Chief Engineer since then.

How’s that role been for you? Well, I got to headquarters and first thing they did I got put in a hall closet over there for a temporary office. Once I got out of the temporary office, I got started and COVID hit. I didn’t get to do a lot of traveling. I do like getting out and seeing the people, the other women and men of MDOT and seeing the projects that we are completing and improving the roadways for the traveling public. COVID hit and it’s been a difficult time. We’ve had to adjust our work schedules. We’ve had some people working from home. We had people that we couldn’t put five or six people in a truck to go patch potholes. We had to distance those men and women doing their day-to-day operations to maintaining the roadways so it’s just been a difficult transition. Hopefully we’re coming out from the pandemic but I know the numbers are up recently and starting to see an uptick in the amount of people we have tested positive for COVID but we made it through it. Some things we excelled and some things we didn’t and we learned from our mistakes but all in all it’s just been a trying time trying to protect everybody from the COVID stuff.

Yeah, so with COVID the world basically shut down but here at MDOT that’s not really an option. So can you talk about how what you’ve seen and how our crews have continued to work for the people of Mississippi through COVID? Like I said, we couldn’t stop patching potholes. We challenged each district to come up with a plan to make sure that we were doing what our main function is to provide a safe and efficient traveling roadway out there to move freight to and from. Like I said we challenged each district to come up with a plan to get the work done but also take into account that COVID was there. Limiting the amount of people in each truck was a big deal. Providing traffic control was a big deal. We got people who tested positive for COVID or a family member did and of course they had to quarantine. We had to mix crews together to get the jobs done and we had to prioritize things. Take the most dangerous thing first and let some of the other things go that we didn’t have the men or women out there able to do the job because they were being quarantined.

Brian, you just talked about the men and women who are out there on the roadways every day building and maintaining a safe and efficient transportation network. Can you talk about how dangerous it is — their jobs kind of on a daily basis? Absolutely especially working on the interstates. You got real high speed traffic. If they’re doing the speed limit they’re doing 70. Most of them are doing 75 to 80. We’re working within literally feet, inches away from vehicles going by. We always talk about put that cell phone down. Any distraction you can veer over and either hit somebody or hit a barrel and knock it into a person. It’s really dangerous. When I was out in the field I always looked at it as plan your escape route. I always tried not to put myself in too dangerous of a situation. Situational awareness and of course we have our MDOT safety program that we talk about these things and we preach it each day that we want everybody to come home at the end of the day and get to their family and do what they like to do. What else can our traveling public do to keep our people safe? Well, I think we do an excellent job as the department of trying to get the word out of what coming work or lane closures we have. You can visit MDOTtraffic.com to get the upcoming lane closures in your area. We got the Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all that stuff. We do a good job of pushing that out there. To check those out and listen and understand that hey look we’re out there trying to provide you with a safe and a smooth road but there’s going to be some inconveniences.

So go ahead check those outlets and be able to plan your route so you get a little extra time so you won’t be late and be rushing to try to go around a cone, go around a stop sign, flag or something. You just need to be patient and like I say just obey the speed limit and put that phone down. Any distraction is a danger. So MDOT’s goal always is safety and safety for the traveling public and safety for our workers. Reiterating to our listeners and to the traveling public that the safer that they can be on the roads the safer it is for the workers and the safer it ends up being for them. Absolutely. We’re there to protect everybody not only our workers. We want all our work zones to be safe to be able to maneuver through to get to where the public needs to go.

And just to reiterate, these are, the men and women out on the roads, these are moms, dads, brothers, sisters. These are real people. We’ve had unfortunately you know deaths recently, injuries. I know recently there was one of our guys who lost a leg. Can you talk to us a little about that these are real people with real families? Absolutely. About three months ago I guess that we had an employee that got called out in the late hours of the night. We had a tree fall across the road. He responded. He was out of his truck and he was cutting the tree up to get it out of the road and a vehicle came from the other side of the work area and ran through the tree and hit our guy. He was rushed to the hospital and it was touch and go for several days. He got better but the doctors had to amputate his leg. Me and Colby Willis started a support group at MDOT for things that happen to our employees to help the family while they’re in need. It’s been a great thing. I think it speaks a lot to how MDOT’s a family and how we look out for one another and how that from the top down that there’s support for all of MDOT’s employees. Absolutely and like I say, I’m the old field guy and I know what the men and women out there that are really the boots on the ground workers what they go through. Being there to support, you call them a teammate or a family. We really became good friends with his family. His mother, his wife, his three kids. To learn about his personal life has been great to me. I’m glad he was able to share that with us. I’m glad we were able to go over there and meet the employee and his family and it’s real. It really is real to see that one of your family members are hurt and they need your help and I’m glad we were able to do that. Absolutely. That’s great.

Brian, Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. If you can just reiterate. Just put that phone down right and just drive. Absolutely. Just put that phone down and we want you to make it safe to your destination. We want to be able to go home at the end of the day to enjoy our family and friends. Absolutely. Thank you, Brian. Thank y’all.

We now have MDOT Public Information Officer Michael Flood in the studio. Michael, Thanks for joining us. Hello. Thanks for having me. Big podcast guy thanks. Michael, you’ve been here 11 years. You’re really the old hand, an oracle, just have a ton of institutional knowledge. What do you like about working at MDOT and what is your experience been here over the years? Oh man, I always feel like I’m the youngest person here still even though I’m not anymore obviously but it was always like that when I first started out. Yeah. I mean I’ve been a part of some pretty, Katrina plus ten anniversary in 2015. That was the Katrina anniversary. That was a big year for us. I used to cover the southern part of the state. Had a great time covering Districts 6 and 7 and still talk to everyone down there. That was a big milestone moment. Speaking of milestones in 2016 a year later we had the 100 year centennial for MDOT. That was a big year for us. Those are probably the two in my Public Affairs career highlights that stick out the most. In 2018 getting to work with Commissioner Hall for his final two years. That was just an invaluable experience being able to work under the man. You still see his efforts at MDOT. You still see what all he’s done here. Everybody here really appreciates him. It’s been an awesome time. My favorite thing about working at MDOT is no doubt the people here and the family atmosphere. I get really passionate talking about MDOT workers from roadside workers to admin workers to everyone in between leadership. It seems like every time there’s someone else that comes in they just fit right in and they are great to work with including y’all is definitely my favorite part of MDOT.

Ok. So we’re going to jump right in. I’m gonna ask you the question that I’m sure everyone wants to know. What’s happening with Highway 49? 49 alright. I’m very proud to say we’re making lots of good headway on 49. For those that don’t know we are reconstructing and widening about seven and a half miles of highway 49 between Florence and Ridgeland. So it is a major project. When I say reconstructing that highway, we are reconstructing the roadway bridges, drainage, removing a lot of concrete pavement and medians and updating crossovers and all the intersections so it is a major project seven and a half miles long. They are making good headway on it. We’ve got crews have switched traffic onto the newly constructed outside lanes so if you’re driving through there you will able to see a lot of this progress that we’re making. We’ve got about another year or so left on it so we’re looking forward to wrapping it up by the completion date by the end of next summer.

So 49’s been going on for a while. A lot of people drive that road every day and they’ve been seeing it. What’s something that you can tell them that why this work is taking so long? Right. So this work did begin in 2017 and it has been a long time coming and we’re very happy to be approaching the end of it but we did have to make some adjustments due to the type of soil that is located throughout the area. I understand that we had feds come in and look at it with all of our guys and they all agreed that if we want to fix this roadway long term that we’ve got to address the soil issue. They extended the project about a year. Of course all the rain we got in 2018 and 2019 did not help either but fortunately crews are making significant progress today. Drive through there today and you’ll be able to see it. We’ve got traffic on the newly constructed outside lanes. There’s a new signalized intersection at Gunther Road. We appreciate everyone’s patience in allowing us to get this done. There’s a lot of businesses located throughout there and a lot of utilities that need to be relocated and driveways that we’ve got to work out. It’s a seven and a half mile project of one of the most heavily traveling highways in the state. It is definitely an undertaking and we appreciate everyone’s patience in letting us get it done. It will be pretty amazing when it’s done. It is.

So we’ve got 49 that’s a big project in central Mississippi. You cover central and western Mississippi? That’s right. The central part of the state, you know, District 5 from Jackson to Meridian and those counties in between and then the western part of the state as well district three. A lot going on in both.

So in District 5 in central Mississippi another big project is I-20. Can you tell us a little bit about that one? Absolutely. This is probably the biggest project I’ve ever been a part of at MDOT and watching take place. We’re talking about it at a good time because we just got traffic switched onto the newly constructed I-20 eastbound bridge. What they’re doing is replacing the I-20 eastbound bridge that spans Highway 51, 55 south and the railroad in Hinds County. The crews just built a larger adjacent bridge structure on a new alignment that will replace that existing bridge. The existing bridge will be demolished afterwards. There’s a lot of other work that goes into it. It includes new construction and widening along I-20 eastbound for the new alignment and I-55 northbound for the new bridge and again there’s new roadway alignment. They’re updating a lot of the ramps. Additional work includes the slide repairs, slope stabilization along the railroad. We’ve got ITS installations as well throughout that whole area. You’ll also see a lot of headway on that if you drive by through I-20 right now. Well, Michael, thank you so much for the updates on those projects. I know you’ve been living and breathing them for quite some time now and looking forward to finishing those up.

Are there any additional projects in central Mississippi that you’d like to touch on? Of course. We’ve got a lot going on. We’ve covered a lot in D5. Another big one we’re replacing a bridge right now on State Route 19 over the Kentawka Canal tribute area in Neshoba County. That began in May and crews are making progress on that. If we’re moving over to the western side of the state just to highlight some stuff we’re doing over there if a lot of people remember last year a car hauler struck our sign truss over I-20 in Vicksburg that we had to completely remove it because it damaged the foundation bolt. We recently got that new sign truss back up and you’ll see if you’re traveling I-20 in Vicksburg. Just down the road from there on the frontage road we’re doing an extension of I-20 frontage road so that is a major undertaking that’s moving along well. What it’s gonna do is extend the existing south frontage road from old Highway 27 to Highway 80 in Warren County.

In addition, there’s gonna be five bridges that are on I-20 within the Vicksburg city limits that are going to receive new bridge railing and other minor repairs. Work on those bridges won’t start until the frontage road is complete. Just south of there in Jefferson County we’re doing a slide repair on Highway 61 south bound that’s almost complete. That is just north of the Adams County line. We recently completed some overlays one on Highway 82 from Hugh Street to Woodlawn Drive in Greenville. We also got a new District 3 engineer that I’m very excited to work with named Earl Glenn. Yeah. We were up in Greenville and saw that overlay and it looks really nice. It does yeah. I know Commissioner Simmons will be happy to see that. That’s all up in his area. Yeah.

So you mentioned a little about the new district engineer in District 3. Can you tell us a little bit about him? Yes. Absolutely. Earl has been with MDOT 23 years. I believe he spent 10 years at the project office and then 13 years in the Construction Division. He’s gonna manage all District 3 operations from maintenance to construction, project development, traffic operations so he’ll be covering that Mississippi Delta region. We’re in good hands over there with Earl. We miss Durwood and appreciate Durwood Graham who was our former district engineer there. We appreciate all his efforts and work over the years but very much looking forward to working with Earl and the District 3 crews as well. Sounds like lots of really great work is getting done. Yes indeed.

Absolutely and I know we talk about this a lot but work zone safety. What can we do to keep our people safe? Yes. Thank you for mentioning that. The first two projects we talked about I-20 and 49 although they are making a lot of progress on those and traffic’s on the new I-20 bridge they’re not quite done and there’s gonna be about a year of work left on both. They are towards the end of both of those projects. A lot of equipment is gonna be out there. There’s gonna be lane closures associated with those projects. There’s still gonna be some ramps that are closed and crossovers closed. Most importantly there are going to be workers out there for the next year. Not only through these projects but all of the projects we have going on throughout Mississippi keep an eye out please for our workers. Put down the phone especially traveling through these work zones. Slow down. Stay alert. Pay attention to these posted signages. Majority of fatalities that happen at work zones I understand are to the drivers themselves and not to the workers. Protect yourself as well as our workers. We want everyone going home safe. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. We learned a lot and it was really good to have you. Thank y’all. I really enjoyed it.

Well that wraps up another episode of The Extra Mile podcast. If you want to hear more don’t forget to subscribe and download wherever you get your podcast. Oh yeah. Key words. Subscribe and download please. We want to give a special thanks to our wonderful guests Central District Public Information Officer Michael Flood and MDOT Deputy Executive Director, Chief Engineer Brian Ratliff. We also need to give a special thanks to our editor Drew Hall. He’s great. Also great our producer Katey Hornsby and a big thank you to our listeners for tuning in wherever you are. We’ll catch you next time and remember as always Drive Smart out there on Mississippi highways.