Drama on the Job
Public works and highway maintenance, like so many public service jobs, rarely involve moments of high drama. Toss in a hurricane or an out-of-control tractor-trailer rig, however, and you’ve got the makings of a disaster movie.
But this was no movie script for the city employees of Bound Brook, N.J., who struggled to mitigate a disaster when Hurricane Floyd passed through on Sept. 17.
Nor was it a choreographed TV stunt that sent six Pennsylvania highway workers scrambling for their lives on May 11 when a tractor-trailer careened through their work zone.
This was real life.
UNDER WATER. As the name suggests, Bound Brook is a borough bound by brooks — and the Raritan River. So when Hurricane Floyd swept into town, the 11 members of AFSCME Local 2168 (Council 73) who work for the Department of Public Works knew they were in for trouble.
They never imagined it would get this bad.
The one-two punch of flooding and fire resulted in two drowning deaths and property damage exceeding $80 million.
As the water rose, the crew put up barricades and roadblocks, “never assuming some of these things would be 10 to 15 feet underwater,” says Dan Smith, heavy-equipment operator and president of the local.
But there was little more they could do. Main Street was under 15 feet of water. “Bound Brook was almost totally devastated,” says Smith. “It left cars strewn everywhere, and debris that’s unimaginable. Main Street was ground zero.”
The Public Works Department was still cleaning up the massive layer of mud and debris more than a month later.
The workers “service the community the best we can at all times, and we just felt very help-less that we couldn’t help the people, as far as stopping the water,” recalls Smith. “They’re looking at us to be the miracle workers, and we’re not.”
AFSCME contributed $10,000 each to Council 52, representing Northern New Jersey, and Council 73, representing the central part of the state, to help members who suffered losses from the hurricane.
HIGHWAY HORROR. It was nothing short of miraculous that the Pennsylvania highway workers — and the trucker whose fiery rig plowed through them like bowling pins — escaped with their lives after the crash on Interstate 80.
The workers, members of Council 86, were clearing the eastbound lanes of the bridge over Route 15 when the tractor-trailer struck an unoccupied DOT vehicle and burst into a “wall of flame.”
The rig continued rolling, scattering the workers and striking one of them, Marvin Aunkst, who was thrown onto the rig’s cabin. Despite a head wound, he managed to pull the driver out of the cabin to safety once the truck came to a halt.
Aunkst and fellow crew members Lynn Napp, Bob Stahl, Woodrow Packer, Steve Hicks (of Local 2153) and Gerald Baker (of Local 2369) were cited for bravery at a press conference in June.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation Bradley Mallory presented Aunkst with a PennDOT Hero Award for assisting the injured driver.
By Clyde Weiss and Chris Dodd
