In response to devastating floods from hurricanes, North Carolina is raising I-95 in Lumberton's Coastal Plain, widening lanes and building higher bridges for future flood resilience by 2027. Construction ongoing with local contractors and traffic management enhancements planned.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
The new Carthage Road bridge is seen under construction, including two cranes.
One small town getting hit by a pair of destructive floods in three years by powerful hurricanes is almost assuredly going to lead to expensive engineering countermeasures.
That certainly has been the case the last few years in Lumberton, N.C., where Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 each caused 1,000-year-floods along the city's Lumber River and inundated sections of Interstate 95, the United States' primary freeway on the East Coast, leading to its partial closure in the Tarheel State's Coastal Plain.
In particular, floodwater from each tropical storm surged across the twin I-95 north-south bridges over the Lumber River in the community, rendering them out-of-service for several days and forcing drivers to use detours.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
In the case of Hurricane Matthew, it dumped 10- to 14-in. of rain in the first week of October on top of an earlier 10-in. downpour from a separate weather system on Sept. 28. The heavy rains caused the river to reach 24 ft. on Lumberton's south side, breaking the previous record of 20.5 ft.
Two autumns later, Florence caused various gauges around Lumberton to register between 17.5 and 22.7 in. of rain in mid-September 2018.
As a result of the interstate's two shutdowns, the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) began an effort in 2021, following years of planning, to widen the highway from four to eight lanes from Exit 13, south of Lumberton, to just north of town at mile marker 21.
In addition, construction crews started the preliminary work to replace the existing Lumber River bridges with a single span that will be 10 ft. higher than the original structures, making the freeway "more resilient against future flooding," according to the state agency.
To do so, dirt was hauled on site to raise the interstate grade and get it well above the river.
Other taller, wider and longer bridges also will be rebuilt and enhanced at I-95's Exits 17, 19 and 20.
The NCDOT's work in Lumberton is but one component of a larger 28-mi.-long section of the interstate that is being improved through a series of contracts. The construction stretches south to north from Lumberton in Robeson County to Exit 41 in Cumberland County, near Hope Mills.
In late September 2021, NCDOT contracted with a joint venture made up of Flatiron Constructors Inc. and United Infrastructure Group, based in the Raleigh suburb of Morrisville, to design-build what at that time was to be a $432 million project in Lumberton.
Due to skyrocketing construction material prices, in part because of post-COVID impacts and continuing supply-chain issues, NCDOT allowed a $7.4 million cost escalation in 2023 to assist all the companies working on the project.
Joe Bailey is a construction manager for KCI Associates of N.C., a Raleigh professional service company based in Sparks, Md., that, among other duties, supports infrastructure projects across the nation. He explained that one thing the cost escalation funded was a $500,000 pipe bore under the interstate for future utilities on behalf of Lumberton municipal officials.
"So, the project's entire budget is actually about $440 million, and that could increase a bit more in the future," he added.
At the I-95 site, Bailey and KCI work in tandem with three other firms to perform all the testing, measurements, survey checks and management of the general contract that would normally be done by the state transportation department.
"We take the place of the NCDOT staff on the project, but we do the work directly under Mike Parker, the NCDOT's resident engineer for Lumberton," he added.
Although the primary objective of the I-95 improvements around Lumberton and the river is the raising of the highway's bridges, in addition to other grade changes to guard against future flooding, Bailey said the lane expansions are just as critical.
"Interstate 95 is certainly at capacity now, meaning we need the extras lanes," he emphasized. "Lumberton has the second highest volume of traffic on I-95 in North Carolina after the Dunn-Benson area to the north where the freeway meets I-40."
Because traffic is often congested along I-95 from the South Carolina border to the north, construction crews will install two additional lanes of traffic — for a total of four — in each direction along the corridor all the way up to the intersection with Business 95 at Exit 40 as well as a single extra lane on each side up to mile marker 41, southeast of Fayetteville.
"Rush hours in Lumberton are different than those in the larger cities of North Carolina in that ours peak at midday," Bailey explained. "That's when people from Florida or folks traveling from Washington, D.C., arrive in this area on I-95. In addition, our heaviest traffic is on the weekends. We will often double our normal traffic count on a summer weekend as people are heading to the beaches or to Florida."
Work Began Even Before Main Contract Was Signed
After some preliminary work was started almost a year before the project's contract was awarded, according to Bailey, the larger construction effort got under way in the late summer of 2022 with a temporary widening of I-95 to prepare for the project's initial phase, which is still ongoing.
He said that part of the work has been delayed due to an issue with a new bridge over the CSX rail line that will be built by the contractors at mile marker 18 along the interstate highway.
"Originally, the construction contract had to allow for one additional rail track, but the railroad company later decided it needed a second additional track in the future, so that caused us to have to re-do some things," Bailey said on June 27. "Hopefully, it will not take quite a full year to build the railroad bridge. Maybe later this year, but more likely in 2025, we can get traffic shifted to complete Phase 1."
In 2023, the temporary widening of the design-build project continued, along with utility coordination and right-of-way acquisition, and 2024 began with some of the barrier wall construction on the edge of I-95, he said.
"As we are raising the interstate throughout most of this area, there is a substantial amount of wall being built and due to our proximity to a rock quarry, which is quite a distance away, the contractors have elected to mostly go with cast-in-place walls, of which there are many.
"We also have a lot of paving to do; that is about ready to ramp up heavily in the next few weeks and continue through the rest of the summer," Bailey said, noting that the contractors estimate 1.5 million tons of asphalt will be used when all is said and done.
Next year's work will be geared toward getting all vehicle traffic onto the southbound side of I-95 to build the entire northbound roadway up to grade. He noted that there will be a lot of dirt hauling to change the grade in 2025; more wall construction to build up the other side of the freeway; and fabric wall installation to make the grades separate between the two elevations so traffic is flowing below on one side and road building is above on the other.
Freeway, Bridges Safeguarded Against Future Floods
Even before the two catastrophic hurricanes struck the region in 2016 and 2018, NCDOT started looking into the feasibility of upgrading I-95 as far back as 2009. Its study was completed seven years later but too late to be acted on before the twin storms wreaked havoc in southeastern North Carolina.
It sought to determine how high future floodwaters could get along the interstate so that NCDOT engineers could decide on the project's design parameters for higher bridges and raised roadway grades.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
One thing the study did not consider, though, was the unlikelihood of two 1,000-year floods hitting the state in such a brief period of time, Bailey said.
Of course, having gone through the hurricanes, NCDOT's local engineers knew what the infrastructure elevations needed to be after having witnessed the heights of the flooding.
Based on that knowledge and the earlier analysis, Bailey said the I-95/Lumber River bridge is being raised 13 ft., the most of any other nearby structure. The Carthage Road overpass, close to the river at Exit 19, is currently getting an 11-ft. grade change, while two other interchanges at the interstate will be raised about 5 ft.
"We also have to bear in mind that improvements here can affect other areas," Bailey elaborated. "At the Lumber River, we are raising the bridge and increasing the clearance, but we don't want to do it so much that it would have a negative impact downstream.
"So, a very extensive analysis also was made to determine all the pipe sizing. As a result, we are going to a sealed pipe system where we have walls. Instead of RCP pipe, we have a lot of welded steel pipe, something that is unique for this project."
Many Tarheel Contractors Are Braving Heat
Because of the unusually hot temperatures and humidity this past summer in the low country around Lumberton, Bailey explained that concrete contractors had to start their pours "very early in the mornings, around 4 to 5 a.m., to avoid as much of the hot weather as possible."
The week of June 27, about 350 cu. yds. of concrete were poured, according to Bailey. The temperature was a little over 100 degrees.
He cautioned other potential issues await as the I-95 upgrades progress.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
"I don't know if we have yet gotten to the most challenging aspects of the project. At Exit 19, for instance, there is a pile wall where the river has a little ox bend — or sharp turn — in it just east of I-95 where the Lumber turns back toward the freeway. We have a very deep pile wall that is going to go in there which will likely be a unique piece of work.
"The other thing will be just the volume of concrete that we are using — about 93,000 cubic yards — more than any other project that I have been associated with. They are slip forming or pouring in place all these walls and that is a coordination challenge."
By the time the I-95 project in Lumberton is completed, Bailey estimated, a total of 1.5 million cu. yds of borrow and 8,000 cu. yds of unclassified material will be required. Additionally, the contractors will utilize roughly 40,000 ft. of 14x73 steel pipes and 11,000 ft. of pipe piles. Once paving at the site begins, the amount of asphalt to be used is likely to be around 1.5 million tons, he said.
Most, if not all, the subcontractors working for Flatiron and United are based in the Tarheel State, according to Bailey.
The grading work is complete, he added, and was handled by C.M. Lindsay & Sons and BMCO Construction, a pair of Lumberton contractors. The hauling is being carried out by Mt. Airy-based Smith-Rowe LLC; the road paving will be performed by Barnhill Contracting in Rocky Mount; and Young Construction Co. in Wake Forest is in charge of the pile-boring operations.
The Flatiron-United joint venture itself, Bailey noted, "is responsible for most all of the structural work, plus they are doing some of the fine grading, pipe and water line installation, most of the walls, and all of the erosion control."
Traffic-Management Enhancements
The bridges and overpasses that intersect with I-95 in Lumberton also are getting upgrades to better handle the growing traffic in the area, according to Bailey, along with the city streets and ramps connecting to the freeway.
When work is complete, he noted that the northbound I-95 on-ramp from N.C. Highway 72 at Exit 17 will be relocated further to the east and become a diamond interchange with an off-set leg for the on-ramp.
"The new structure did not need widening, but its elevation had to change, so we built it by sawing off a piece of the old bridge and were able to build the replacement structure as one phase of work. By doing that, it changed some geometrics that required a slight shift in how the ramps work."
Bailey added that the new Carthage Road overpass at Exit 19 will be bookended by a combination of diamond interchanges and roundabouts at the top of its on- and off-ramps. The designs also call for the ramp on the eastern side of I-95 to incorporate a service road access so that instead of a circle, the roundabout will have an oval shape to accommodate the extra leg.
Just to the north at Exit 20, a diverging diamond lane design will be employed. Their beauty, he said, "is that you build the new structures offline so as not to impact traffic, and they are very efficient. There is already one at Exit 22 so it will not be anything new to the Lumberton area."
If all goes according to plan, and factoring in other possible issues, Bailey predicts the entire I-95 upgrade in Lumberton will be finished in late 2027. CEG
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.
Read more from Eric Olson here.
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