CHAMP arrives in Northwest Georgia
Safety crews patrolling the interstates offer free motorist assistance and help keep the roads clear.
Less than two hours after the program launched across Northwest Georgia at 6 a.m. Monday, a CHAMP crew came across an overturned tractor-trailer carrying a load of liquid sugar in Haralson County.
“It was too big to push out of the traffic lane, but we set up traffic control,” said AECOM engineer Brian Purvis, project manager for the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Coordinated Highway Assistance and Maintenance Program.
The GDOT District 6 roll-out of CHAMP trucks means motorists on interstates in the region can call 511 for assistance, much
like with the HERO program in metro Atlanta counties. The free service is funded through motor fuel taxes.
“It will cover from where the HEROs end,” GDOT spokesman Mohamed Arafa said, “On I-75
from mid-Bartow County to the Tennessee line and I-20 from Douglas County to the Alabama line.”
Patrols will be out 16 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
But unlike the metro program, they’ll do more than just respond to calls.
GDOT District Engineer DeWayne Comer said crews will also be clearing the roads of debris and other minor hazards — blown tire treads, lost ladders, downed tree limbs — and identifying maintenance is- sues.
If drains on the shoulder get clogged in a storm and water overflows onto the road, a CHAMP crew carries tools to remove the vegetation.
“It’s also going to relieve a lot of duties on our maintenance foremen, who spend a lot of time on the interstates doing those things,” Comer said.
The specially marked F-250 pick-up trucks have front bumpers capable of pushing anything from a car to a box truck out of the road.
Jumper cables from the well-equipped toolbox can also be charged via a box that’s mounted on the bumper for easy accessibility.
At Monday’s inaugural wreck on I-20, the semi was too large to move. However, the CHAMP operator immediately set out traffic cones and backed up the truck — which has a pop-up electronic message board — to alert oncoming motorists of the slow-down ahead.
Purvis said metro Atlanta drivers are used to stop-and-go traffic on the interstates but motorists in the outlying areas expect to keep going.
“Nobody’s expecting traffic to stop, so we get a lot of secondary incidents that can be worse than the first,” he said.
The trucks also have a
motorized hook to help remove large trees from the road. Among the other tools are shovels and sledge hammers, an air compressor to re-inflate tires, a heavy-duty jack and enough fuel to get a stranded driver to the next exit.
CHAMP operator Alex Helsper works in the District 1 Gainesville area but was at GDOT’s Cartersville office Monday to share his experience.
One of his more timely saves came when a box truck crashed through a fence and landed with a broken oil pan on a drain in the median. After setting up cones and the message
board, Helsper grabbed oil-dry from the back of his truck and sprinkled it over the spreading leak. A HAZMAT crew that arrived later swept it up and took it away.
“We saved some fish that day,” Helsper said with a laugh.
The CHAMP service launched in phases, starting with Northeast Georgia on Feb. 7 and continuing clockwise around the state. The Northwest Georgia district launch completes the coverage.
“We always say there’s two Georgias, the Atlanta area and rural Georgia. We’re not so rural anymore,” Arafa said.