Native Sun News: Fatal accident linked to road work at Pine Ridge

Thursday, January 6, 2011  

The following story was written and reported by Ernestine Chasing Hawk. All content © Native Sun News.

PINE RIDGE, SOUTH DAKOTA — On November 12, Patrick Clarke, 45, and Bluecher “Blue” Annis, 30, died when the 1991 Pontiac they were riding in swerved off U.S. Highway 18 crashing into a cement culvert at a construction site on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The duo were traveling between midnight and about 7 a.m. Friday, Nov. 12 when the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the construction site about two miles south of Oglala. Both men were believed to have died on impact. Investigators were not able to determine who was driving the car, Oglala Sioux Tribe chief of police Everett Little White Man reported.

Community members and a former OST Transportation Director have voiced concerns over road conditions that night and allege a lack of proper signage may be responsible for the accident that claimed the lives of the two men.

Reconstruction of U.S. Highway 18 from the community of Oglala to the Pine Ridge Village began July 20, 2010 and is scheduled for completion in October of 2011 and will also include Highway 407 from Pine Ridge to the Nebraska state line.

The $28 million improvement project was funded in part by a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Grant under the American Recovery and Investment Act and has four main goals: safety, environmental improvement, economic development and job creation. Each year this stretch of highway sees more than two and half times the amount of accidents than the rest of South Dakota and according to Public Safety officials, was in desperate need of reconstruction.

However reconstruction of the road also appears to be a safety hazard.

Jeffrey Whalen, former Director of OST Transportation, speaks out about road conditions the night the accident happened.

“The contractor that went out there apparently didn’t follow the signage program according to the construction contract. I don’t have any evidence but I’m hearing this back from one of the inspectors from other jobs that had gone out there to look at this project. If you don’t have the proper signage then you’re obviously going to have accidents in the middle of the night,” he said.

He said there was a section of culvert, called corrugated metal pipe (CMP) that was removed and being replaced with a concrete box culvert. He said alternative roads or access roads must be built to get around the highway during reconstruction of the drainage system.

“They started constructing this drainage and they got part way done, they got the access road built that goes around it. I’m alleging that they didn’t properly sign that particular area and then they moved, less than two miles down the road and they tore out another culvert and started constructing yet another one,” Whalen said.

He said the area where the accident occurred apparently was open for an extended period of time.

“I don’t know what the contract says or how much time frame the contractor has to close them. If it was a tribal project we would’ve probably tried to get them guys to close those projects right away before we allowed them to move any further down the road,” he added.

He claimed the open road was an accident waiting to happen.

“I think they hit it head on. They didn’t have the proper signage so they just came ripping down the road and they ran into that and hit it head on and that was it,” he said. However, according to Richard Zacher, Area Engineer for the S.D. Department of Transportation office in Custer, the road construction area where the accident occurred was properly signed.

“From all the pictures that we took and were taken, the signage matches the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) which is the book that is used across the country for traffic control and for work zones. We were in conformance with that when the accident took place. I haven’t seen an official report from the tribal investigators yet,” he said.

Zacher said the improvement of US Highway 18 is administered by the South Dakota Department of Transportation because it is a state highway that runs through tribal lands and that the project was financed through federal funds.

“We put together the plans, hold the letting and hire the contractors. Part of the agreement we have with the tribe is we have to hire a certain percentage of local workers. If the tribe can provide workers with those skills, then our contractors have to hire those people,” he said.

Loiseau Contractors out of Flandreau is the prime contractor for the project he said with other companies doing the subcontract work including the structures, fencing, concrete work, curb and gutter, sidewalks and that a traffic control contractor out of Rapid City is responsible for signage and supply the signs and set them up.

He said construction is being done in two different phases, the grading portion which is going on now and scheduled to be completed July 29, 2011. In the second phase, the asphalt paving contract will begin and is scheduled to be completed by October 15, 2011.

“It will be a brand new road that includes resurfacing, wider shoulders with rumble strips so when there is a disabled vehicle they will be able to get completely off the road.

There is a lot of pedestrian traffic between Oglala and Pine Ridge so having the wider shoulders will make it that much safer. Some of the curves will be less sharp, some of the hills will be flattened so you won’t have the up and down look so you will be able to see down the road and over the top of the hills,” he said.

In the meantime drivers are cautioned to slow down when driving the portion of Highway 18 that is under construction.

(Contact Ernestine Chasing Hawk at: staffwriter@nsweekly.com)