$529,600 Safe Streets Grant Aimed at Saving Lives in Anderson County
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
On certain afternoons in Anderson County, the soundscape tilts suddenly toward urgency: a siren, a flash of blue or red, a fire engine nosing its way through traffic that doesn’t quite know where to go. The county’s first responders say the near misses happen weekly, especially at busy intersections where the light is red and the ambulance is late.
Now Anderson County has been awarded its second Safe Streets and Roads for All grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, a $529,600 award that follows a $200,000 planning grant in 2023. The earlier money produced a Safety Action Plan; the new money is meant to test one of its more pointed recommendations, which is that it should not be quite so dangerous to hurry to save someone’s life.
“This is a wonderful grant for Anderson County,” said Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns. “It will make our first responders and public safer. Not many counties have received these funds, and we now have done it twice.”
The county will use the grant to pilot emergency vehicle preemption, or E.V.P., systems at selected traffic signals, then study what happens to crash numbers and response times before and after they are turned on. E.V.P. briefly interrupts the ordinary rhythm of an intersection to give a green light to an approaching emergency vehicle and hold everyone else at red, so ambulances and fire trucks are not gambling with cross-traffic as they run the light.
“This is the kind of program that will save lives—no doubt about it,” Tommy Dunn, the Anderson County Council chair, said in a press release. “Based on my years in the volunteer fire service, I can tell you that every second truly counts, and these E.V.P. systems will allow our first responders to offer help more quickly and in a safer manner.”
As it stands, crews from EMS, volunteer and career fire departments, and the sheriff’s office are protected mainly by their lights, their sirens, and the hope that drivers notice in time. The county’s Safety Action Plan underscores the “golden hour” after a serious crash, the window in which each minute between trauma and treatment can mean the difference between recovery and something worse.
“As chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee and a volunteer fire chief, I am thankful for the opportunity to bring E.V.P. systems into our community,” Councilman Greg Elgin, who represents District Three, said in a press release. “These systems will help protect first responders, their patients, and motorists. This program will be of great benefit to our whole community.”
Anderson County is one of only a handful of South Carolina jurisdictions to secure SS4A awards, and it has now done so twice. If the preemption pilot works as planned, the most memorable change for residents may be what they don’t see: fewer screeching halts at intersections, fewer sirens stalled behind a wall of brake lights, and more green lights arriving just in time.
