The first time I saw Jerry Ruschkofski, I was swatting at mosquitoes while working off a barge in the Ashley River. Jerry motored up to the barge in a runabout and climbed aboard to see how work was progressing. My sidekick Barry Fairley and I were up from Atlanta, Georgia, to perform field tests on soil brought up from the bottom of the river. A vertical drill had already delivered sand, silt and even some organic materials. As we went deeper, we encountered marl, which was good news as this soil conducts heat well and is easy to drill.

The year was 1990. Jerry had been charged with a fast-track project to put a 115-kV cable under the Ashley River. A year earlier, Hurricane Hugo hit the Carolina coast and plowed into the city of Charleston, South Carolina. During the storm, South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) had lost transmission lines along with many distribution feeders. This Class 4 hurricane had definitely left its calling card.

The utility came up with a long-range plan to replace overhead river crossings with underground circuits as opportunity arose. The state had decided to replace the bridge into Charleston from the south, and this gave the utility the justification to put the circuit underground. Jerry went with directional drilling to install the circuit. I was there because Jerry asked me to measure the heat transfer properties of the soil so that he could properly size the conductor of the underground cable.

Sights, Sounds and Smells

Today, I can shut my eyes and feel the slight rocking of the barge and catch the sun glinting off the water. In my mind's eye, I see Barry adjusting the current to the field probes. And smells — I remember the slightly organic odor of the samples and the oily, biting smell of the diesel engine that powered the drill rig. I can hear the hammer driving the drill steel into the marl. I can even recall the gut on the guy working the drill.

Of course, all projects come to an end. After a few more days in the field, we loaded up our van and headed back to Atlanta. We took additional samples in the lab, where we finished categorizing soil types. We sent the data on to Jerry and, ultimately, went on to other projects. I'd occasionally check back and see how the project was progressing. I found it frustrating, though, not being involved in the project from beginning to end. It was like getting only one lick of an ice cream cone.

Of course, time marches on, and over the years, my memories of the Ashley River faded into some fold or crevice within my increasingly taxed brain.

Last year, I got a call from Jerry and all those memories came flooding back. Jerry had another underground cable crossing project working — this one even longer than the first. Now, SCE&G was drilling under the Cooper River. When he asked me if I would like to run an article on his latest crossing, I said, “Of course I would!” (See SCE&G Takes Horizontal Drilling to New Lengths, page 16.) Looking at the photos of the rig used for this 7000-ft (2134-m) bore, I can almost see the drill steel turning and mud oozing out of the drill hole.

Jerry dug up some information from the Ashley River project, including a photo of Barry and me working on the river some 15 years ago. Though age has done a number on the two of us, we are both soldiering on.

Any of us who have been in the industry for any length of time have gathered quite a collection of experiences, with the quality of the memory directly related to the difficulty of the challenge. In our rush to hit deadlines, it's easy to let the better part of life slip by. Make sure you take the time to treasure the sights, sounds and smells of projects that will last a lifetime.