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I'm Chris William, and for us as a community and a region, getting back to the business at hand in the issues of everyday life or what is going on now and what we will continue to lay out here in this dialogue right now, and in a moment, we will start again.

Later on this program, South Carolina's Department of Transportation boss, Justin Powell joins us.

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(exciting music) On this edition of "Carolina Business Review," Patrick Woodie from the NC Rural Center, Christopher Finn of South Carolina I-77 Alliance, and special guest, Justin P. Powell, South Carolina Transportation Secretary.

(exciting music continues) - Hello.

Welcoming you to our program.

Gentlemen, Patrick, good to have you back.

- Thank you.

Good to be here.

- Christopher, welcome.

We hope we don't scare you off and we hope we can get you back here.

- I appreciate it.

- Thank you for joining us.

- Thanks so much.

- Let's see.

All right, so Patrick, here we are.

North Carolina Rural Center and all of these things around rural Carolinas.

My guess would be one of the biggest liabilities at this point was the effect of the hurricane, certainly in Western North Carolina and the upstate of South Carolina.

But more importantly, as we go into the holiday season, Christmas trees are a very big business for the Carolinas and certainly North Carolina.

Is that an impact?

- Yeah, there absolutely were impacts.

You know, we are one of the biggest Christmas-tree-growing states in the country, and a few of our counties produce a pretty high percentage of the Christmas trees grown in the United States.

Definitely there were impacts in a lot of different ways.

It shows up in terms of damage to the crop and impacts in terms of being able to get to the crop and get it out.

A lot of, as you well know, and we may even talk a little about the transportation impacts of Helene and getting things back to normal, so crop damage.

But there will be Christmas trees.

I've already seen them.

You know, trees tied to roofs coming out of the mountains, that's a really good thing to see.

And I know those farmers are working as hard as they can to get back to as normal a situation as they can.

At their peak time of the year.

- [Chris] Peak time of the year.

Any wild guess on percentage of impact?

- I have not heard numbers.

I'm sure they probably are available.

I have not heard them.

I have anecdotally had several conversations about big tree farmers that I know in the northwestern part of our state that are really trying to figure out how to get back into business and how to not lose everything, you know, during this peak time of the year.

- Christopher, is there any meaningful fallout for that?

And I call it the column between Charlotte and Columbia, it's the I-77 Alliance, of course, that you lead.

Is there any meaningful fallout from the storms in September that you think have a long-lasting effect for that area that you're in?

- Specifically for our region, we were somewhat fortunate in regards to the storms.

Not a lot of loss infrastructure or the kind of electric grid around our area.

- Yeah.

And Scout, Scout Motors, highly touted, very exciting, huge impact, huge economic development flag in the ground for you all.

What's the status of that project?

- It's coming along.

So recently, I've heard some estimates in regard to some of the projections for production and they're looking possibly to, you know, reach a point where they're at or exceeding, you know, counts at the BMW plant up in Spartanburg.

So really, what we're looking forward to is the potential spinoff from all of that.

So, just recently, we sent some representatives out to Germany for the IZB, which is the International Suppliers Fair, and that got us in front of a lot of companies that are looking to, you know, directly work with Volkswagen and with Scout Motors on this project.

So pretty excited for that.

- Yeah, I know you are.

It was a lot of talk about it, and then of course, it's coming.

Do you get the sense that they're on track for the timeline?

- [Christopher] Yes.

- They're gonna hit what they need to hit?

- Looking to start production I believe was 2027, and that hasn't changed.

- Any big disruptions, just in the last 30 seconds or so here before we bring our guest on, Patrick.

Any big disruptions that aren't already known for rural parts of North Carolina now heading into fourth quarter, beyond what we already know the impact of the storm is gonna be.

What do you think the biggest bogey for them is going to be?

- I think certainly, we're always looking out for layoffs in rural businesses and we track those.

We've seen a little bit of an uptick of things.

A little indication of things slowing down a little bit, but nothing that I think is too disturbing.

You know, there are some concerns around some of the big announcements that have happened in North Carolina and maybe schedules changing a little bit.

Nothing major that would affect projects that I've heard of, but certainly an indication that schedules may be changing a little bit.

- All right guys, stay with us.

We're gonna bring our guests on.

Before we do that, he has the top job in transportation and infrastructure in the Old North State in North Carolina.

He's gonna be joining us.

His name's Joey Hopkins.

Joey is not new to the agency and he is not new to the industry of transportation and infrastructure.

He is the secretary of transportation.

He will be our guest on this program.

And then also, talk about being strapped on the edge of this helicopter blade.

Harry Sideris, the president of Duke Energy, as Duke was literally first responder after the hurricanes that came through.

And I say hurricanes, plural, that came through the Carolinas this past hurricane season.

Harry Sideris will talk about what Duke Energy has done, where they are, how they're financing, et cetera, et cetera.

And that's also on this program.

Our guest may be new to the top job, but he is certainly not new in the business of transportation.

And he's certainly not new to those in and around infrastructure in the Carolinas, and specifically, in South Carolina.

Prior to his appointment and confirmation, he was the chief operating officer to the agency during former Secretary Christie Hall's tenure.

Joining us now is the South Carolina secretary of transportation, Justin Powell.

Mr. Secretary, welcome to the program.

- Thank you for having me.

Great to be up here.

- I have to say (laughs), and I'm sorry sir, but I have to bring this up, that you were late to the production 'cause you got stuck in traffic.

That seems poetic.

When that happens to you, Mr. Secretary, and I'm not making light of it, but when that happens to you, what goes through your mind about traffic?

- Well, I mean, I think it's just the challenge of growth that we're facing both in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Now, I'll say I got stuck in traffic on the North Carolina side of lawn.

And I'll call my friend Joey Hopkins about that later.

But, you know, I think it just makes you realize the importance of transportation, how you've gotta move your system forward, deal with that growth, deal with that congestion because it affects people's lives.

I mean, it affects you getting to school, getting to work.

Those minutes matter and it certainly mattered for me being a few minutes late to the production here today.

- And, you know, of course that's not an emergency problem for us, but it just, as I said, it seemed a little poetic.

So Secretary Powell, the idea that North Carolina has gotten a lot of press because of the tragic loss around Hurricane Helene, but South Carolina has had your fair share, their fair share.

What's the current status?

By the numbers, what were the big numbers of impact and how do you start to remediate or ameliorate that?

- Sure.

Certainly we don't have the level of damage that our friends in North Carolina had, in western North Carolina with the washouts of the roads and the severe flooding, but Hurricane Helene was really impactful for South Carolina as well.

So we dealt with tropical storm force, hurricane force wounds coming into a part of the state that doesn't normally get hurricanes.

We're used to hurricanes in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, we're not necessarily used to the hurricanes in Greenwood and Gaffney.

So what we saw was a tremendous amount of debris fell.

We've already collected almost a million cubic yards of debris and we know we're just getting started.

They're coming up from that.

During the peak of the storm, we actually had about half of the power meters out across South Carolina.

So a lot of teamwork ended up happening between DOT and our power companies to start restoring electricity.

You know, where our crews could help on cutting, they worked on the lines.

Terms of damages, we did have some, nowhere near what my friends up in North Carolina have, but it's probably around $50 million worth of damage that we're dealing with.

And we're moving ahead with emergency procurements and starting to get those repairs underway as quickly as possible.

- You know, the Palmetto State has always been a promise.

I'm going to give you both a chance here to jump in, but the Palmetto state's always been pretty progressive about finding creative ways to get transportation funding.

But when this happens, when you have a natural disaster or an act of God, obviously, the funding has to come from somewhere to meet that need.

How do you finance these repairs?

- Well see, I think we work hard on managing our cash.

We work hard on managing our budget, recognizing that things like this happen.

So we were fortunate that we do have basically the cash on hand to pay for the expense so that there's no question about our response, being able to do what the people need us to do.

You know, at the end of the day, many of these expenses will get reimbursed by Federal Highway Administration for a lot of our road damages, and then by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the debris and other damages we've got.

But there's a time, there's a lag.

It takes up to a year, two, three years before you start seeing those dollars.

So we take a lot of pride in how we've managed our finances so that we're gonna be able to float through this experience without necessarily interrupting the rest of our construction program.

- Did you have to go to the State House to ask for funds?

- No, we've been able to work with them, what we already have.

So we've been able to work with what we have and you know, certainly there'll be a dialogue with the general assembly, I think as the expense related to Helene comes into full view as everybody starts telling their bills.

But in the immediate term, we're able to manage through it.

- [Chris] Patrick.

- So I'm the rural economic development guy and we certainly look at fiscal infrastructure as one of the key building blocks of economic development.

Transportation is a big piece of that fiscal infrastructure piece.

I'd love your perspective.

You know, we're both very rural states, North and South Carolina, a lot of vibrant growing cities that are surrounded by rural areas.

The transportation needs in rural areas are different than those in urban areas.

You know, we struggle really with the planning part and trying to get projects through to funding, and then ultimately, through to completion.

Because just by definition of being rural, one of the things we struggle with is having the capacity, human resource, and financial and otherwise to be able to, you know, aggressively develop projects and plan for them.

What's your perspective of that and have you found unique ways that rural communities are able to get their priorities addressed?

- Sure.

So, you know, certainly in South Carolina, we've been working on our 10-year plan.

So that started under former Secretary Hall and really came after the 2017 Roads Bill was passed by the General Assembly.

That dramatically increased the state funding that came into to DOT.

I'll share a couple things that we've been doing on supporting rural communities.

First and foremost, our interstate capacity program that we have.

We talk a lot about Malfunction Junction in Columbia, the 526 project in Charleston.

But a couple key projects going on right now are widening I-26 between Columbia and Charleston.

Tremendous volume of traffic, but a very rural area that we have routine breakdowns on the interstate there.

Same thing happening on I-95.

We really had to look at it a little bit differently than we normally do.

We had to look at the truck volume as opposed to the car volume coming through to see that we needed to do that.

A second really big thing we've been doing has been trying to tackle, South Carolina has the unfortunate distinction of having the nation's worst railroad fatality rate.

And so actually, when that 2017 Roads Bill was passed, the General Assembly actually required us to put $50 million per year specifically for railroad safety projects.

So we have gotten over 1100 miles of projects across South Carolina all in our rural areas, really to start bringing those numbers down and we're seeing the results from it.

So we've gotten, on those projects that have been completed, we've seen a 20% reduction in the fatalities that occur on those roads, so tremendous progress there.

And then a third, we do a lot with metropolitan planning organizations in our urban areas, but we have council governments that represent the interest of our rural areas.

And the following passage of the federal infrastructure bill a few years ago, We've increased the amount of money that we're going to that and one of the things that we were committed to was making sure that there was a minimum amount that every region got of $5 million per year that they could invest in needs.

Not only just what Charleston and Greenville need, but making sure that Abbyville and Bamberg got attention as well.

- Yeah, I promise you we'll gave you a chance here, Christopher, let me just follow up quickly.

It almost sounds like, and I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but it almost sounds like this is a pretty flush time financially for DOT.

I mean, it seems like you've got a lot of money to do these priorities.

Is that fair to say?

- Well see, I think, you know, the General Assembly back in 2017 passed their 2017 Roads Bill, really did help us bring about six to $700 million into the agency.

That that certainly helped us do that.

There was the federal infrastructure bill that got passed three years ago that, that's been helpful too.

I think on the flip side though, while the dollars have increased, we've seen a pretty significant increase in inflation over the past few years.

- From raw materials.

- From raw materials, labor, all of those challenges, just like any other business.

So we used to be able to, back when the bill was passed, 2017 Roads Bill was passed, we could buy 114 miles a two-lane repaving with the dollars we had with one penny of the gas tax.

Today, it's 89 miles we can buy with that same penny, just that pricing is there.

So yeah, there's more money in mobility to do more projects, but those things are definitely much more expensive than they used to be.

- [Chris] Thank you, Chris.

Sorry to interrupt.

- Yeah.

- [Chris] Please go ahead.

- Well, no, I mean, my curiosity with Department of Transportation is how's the coordination with North Carolina's?

I mean, our region being right on the border with Charlotte, you know, we're definitely impacted by the policies and by the planning and the initiatives that they have there.

But is that coordinated with South Carolina, especially, you know, where those overlap?

- DOT, you know, our most partnered DOT in South Carolina is really North Carolina DOT.

We share a long border with each other.

We do the same thing with our friends in Georgia, long border around the Savannah River.

And so when we have projects coming together on either side of the border, we're talking to each other, we're working on it.

In fact, we're about to go, and I'll talk about the Georgia side of the line just 'cause it's most fresh in my mind.

But we're about to widen I-95 on the Georgia border down by Savannah.

Actually, the bridge is in Georgia and the rest of the project is in South Carolina.

So Georgia will be ask asking us to build the project right on their side of the line and vice versa.

And we do that from time to time, but always a robust dialogue.

You know, there's a lot of things going on, particularly in the Charlotte area, that you can't think about one without the other.

- Yeah, I think we think of roads and bridges when we think about transportation, but it is multimodal.

There's a lot going on there.

And one I particularly noticed, at least on the North Carolina side, the impacts, the response to the devastation of Helene would've been far slower had it not been for the presence and availability and the infrastructure that's represented in our small airports, regional and local.

They played really a critical role in getting supplies in there fast.

They don't get a lot of attention.

And I just wonder, you know, your perspective of the role that those small airports play?

- Well, no, I mean, I think in South Carolina, the Department of Transportation is sister to the Aeronautics Commission, which handles a lot of that GA work with the general aviation airports.

But I think you see that that relationship is always there.

You can't think about it stopping at the airport boundary from where we start.

We're doing a lot of work right now at Charleston International, working together on some road projects to improve access really for the Boeing facility down there.

And I'll say, you know, during Helene, you know, when I toured around with Governor McMaster, one of the flights I took was to go over the Donaldson Center, which is a general aviation airport, was now the South Carolina Aviation, it says SC Tech now, but they have, you know, airfield there as well.

And what you saw was just all the resources that were being staged, not necessarily to help South Carolina, because it was the easier to get into western North Carolina from South Carolina during that time.

So that importance in that criticality, so important.

- Your Honor, when you talk about the big strategies for the state of South Carolina and you're coordinating all these efforts, and this is probably not the right way to ask it, but I think, you know, where we're gonna be going here.

Do you get stymied or do you get bogged down in issues like trying to get the Mark Clark extension done in Charleston or the Blythewood interchange or Cross Carolina Crossroads or the Malfunction Junction?

I mean, do those type of projects, when they run into local opposition or when they get a "no" vote from the local county or the city, does that end up making you have to, you know, zig or zag?

- No, I mean, I think one, you know, I think that makes the job fun to a certain extent.

- [Chris] (laughs) Sure.

It's what we do.

But what I would say is, you know, transportation touches everybody.

At the end of the day, transportation, whether you drive or not, you rely upon state highways to get the goods and services to your home to get to where you need to go.

You know, and part of that process is a robust public participation process, making sure that, whether it be in a sales tax referendum like occurred in Charleston or just in the public participation process, I'm thinking about the Scout project, you know, there was a robust dialogue in that community about how that interchange was gonna look, how we were gonna deal with that infrastructure, and I think it was because of that public feedback, we actually got a better product at the end of the day.

And I think that's why we go through the process.

Why we ask that public feedback and those opportunities.

But you know, you have a large portfolio.

South Carolina now has $6 billion under construction, 10 years ago, it was a billion.

So your plate's always full with making sure, trying to keep all those projects moving forward, keeping that program moving forward and do it in a way that helps serve the public interest as we go along.

- [Chris] Christopher.

Question?

- Kind of related to the Blythewood exchange or Volvo.

I feel like the Department of Transportation is a pretty strong ally in economic development and I'm not really sure if it's the same structure, you know, with other states.

You know, I did similar roles up in upstate New York and the DOT was definitely not as involved in projects or in bringing solutions that might be a part of a final piece that attracts a company to come to an area.

So do you know, do you keep track of kind of best practices or how you guys rank compared to other DOTs in that regard?

- Well, you know, I can often only just talk about South Carolina, but what I would say is I view South Carolina, when it comes to economic development, we're a team sport.

That the lines between the Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation, Department of Parks and Recreation, all the tourism, all those folks that have a play, I think we look at as a team sport and it's even in law.

So I'm a member of the coordinating council led by Secretary Lightsey.

I'm talking with the Department of Commerce regularly.

And I think Scout was a real example of that because without the efforts of the Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce, Richland County, all of those partners in making that project happen, you know, we wouldn't be where we are today with that project still on track.

Our construction project to build the new interchange and all the new access roads into Blythewood, basically our on track, $200 million project that really basically started to be done in 2027 that we started basically, you know, a year and a half ago from when that project was announced.

I mean, that's a big deal.

- We have about two minutes left.

Final question?

- Well, I really wonder, revenue-wise, in terms of making some decisions, your general assembly's a little ahead of ours and making some, you know, some strategic decisions about long-term finance and the transportation.

I wonder if you have any advice for North Carolina, pros or cons, about, you know, some of the big considerations when we think about, you know, revenue streams that are gonna be stable or growing as we look to the future.

- Coming from a guy that was stuck in traffic in Charlotte just a few minutes ago.

- You know, what I would say is this.

I think every state is unique in what their transportation needs.

North Carolina and South Carolina are unique amongst our peers in other states because both of us have two of the four largest state highway networks in the country.

So your needs are gonna be different.

But you know, the North Carolina has got a different portfolio than we do.

I think you've gotta look at, in any discussion about transportation funding, is predictability.

You wanna make sure that the contractors and the industry feels confident that revenue keeps coming in, is able to provide the project.

We call it "feed the beast."

You know, we've gotta make sure that we can keep things going.

So predictability, consistency, maintaining the growth with inflation is important.

So I think when you look at that, regardless of whether you're in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, wherever, those type of issues have really gotta be at the forefront if you wanna make sure that you have that continued investment in your system.

- In about less than 60 seconds, you got enough workers?

You looking for talent?

- So, I mean, I think everybody's dealing with the labor challenge.

We actually have been doing really well in making some adjustments on our salaries and our entry pay that we've been able to, at least on our internal staff from that.

But I think it's a challenge not only in South Carolina and North Carolina, globally, just the availability of workers, of people interested in working outside, working on making big projects happen.

There's a lot of competition for labor right now.

And so I think we've been working in South Carolina with our general contractors.

They have the Be Pro Be Proud effort there to encourage people to go into the trades 'cause I think we've gotta keep that investment in our people going to keep this industry going.

- Secretary Powell, thank you for making the trip.

I mean, I know it's not a small commitment and thanks for taking the time.

Please come back.

We have more to unpack around that.

But thank you.

Nice to see you, sir.

And please give our best to former Secretary Hall.

She's, as you well know, you worked for her for a while.

- She was great and I really do appreciate y'all having me up here.

- [Chris] Oh yes, absolutely.

Christopher, thanks for making the trip.

Come back please.

- Absolutely.

Thanks so much.

- [Chris] Patrick, of course, you're always welcome.

- Thank you.

- Good to see you.

Until next week, I'm Chris William and we hope your weekend is good.

Goodnight - [Announcer] Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Foundation for the Carolinas, Sonoco, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, High Point University, and by viewers like you.

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