Steve Borden (BS/CE ’91) was pondering his retirement from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) after 34 years when the biggest challenge of his career disrupted his plans.
Hurricane Helene swept through East Tennessee and western North Carolina last year, causing catastrophic flooding and unprecedented destruction. Bridges and roadways were destroyed, and debris littered nearly every route.
As the Region 1 director of TDOT, Borden led the response effort to rebuild the roadway system in upper East Tennessee. He quickly assembled teams to open key thoroughfares, rescue trapped citizens, and help inundated areas receive food supplies and medical care.
On the one-year anniversary of Helene, Borden and his former TDOT colleagues have a lot to commemorate. Through their work, 47 routes are open and Interstate 26, which provides a vital connection between Tennessee and North Carolina, has been completely restored.
Borden waited until the recovery process was on solid ground before retiring from TDOT earlier this year. He now works for Lochner, an infrastructure services provider for aviation, surface transportation, and water clients.
“To be honest, it’s one of the reasons I stayed longer. These are my people. These are the people that you serve in these communities,” said Borden, who spent 16 years as the TDOT regional director. “I always tell people that you have to love what you do, who you do it with, and find out who you’re supposed to serve. We’re all created to serve, and we’re all created for community. I would have never left in the midst of that.”
All-Vols TDOT Team
During the recovery effort, Borden worked with a Region 1 team filled with fellow Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering graduates. Dexter Justis (BS/CE ‘99, MS/CE ’01), who has been promoted to take over Borden’s role as regional director, was the director of project management at the time; Christie Brown (BS/CE ’98, MS/CE ’99) is the director of preconstruction; and Amanda Snowden (BS/CE ’98) is the director of operations.
“The bond of the people that you go through that process with is so strong. I worked alongside so many UT graduates in all my roles,” Borden said. “Even some of the major, major players in the hurricane recovery were people that went to UT and graduated with me. That community that was forged on the Hill was a very tight knit one.”
Borden and his TDOT team had helped East Tennessee recover from large-scale disasters in the past, including the Gatlinburg wildfires, previous hurricanes, and numerous rockslides.
“But nothing to the magnitude of what we saw with Helene,” Borden said. “When you come to a situation like that, you’ve got a lot of different people with varied backgrounds that are working together. Within a couple of days, we had over 900 people on the ground. On top of that, there were consultants and contractors working.”
Snowden remembers traveling across the region in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane and being awed by the destruction. She felt an immense responsibility to ensure the safety of TDOT employees, motorists on the roadways, and inaccessible communities.
“Each location we would visit, we would say that ‘this is the worst we have seen,’” she said. “The fact that this storm was not isolated, but had such an impact across miles of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, was really hard to understand without seeing it in person. Upon first viewing the lost roadways, bridges, and debris fields, I wondered how in the world were we going to do all of this. But I had confidence in our team and our partners, and we just got to work.”
Throughout the first few days of the recovery, Borden was fielding numerous calls from mayors and other city officials from locations hit hard by the hurricane. They needed roads open to help trapped citizens and receive emergency supplies. TDOT set timelines and deadlines that were “unprecedented in the region.”
“In the first 100 hours, we were able to restore 25 routes,” Borden said. “They may not be perfect, but people can use them. They have connectivity into their community for resources, food supplies, emergency care. We were able to inspect 310 bridges, which is astronomical, and we were able to get seven of the 13 bridges that were out of service reconnected.”
Serving the Public Good
Borden, a Corryton, Tennessee native, is a first-generation college student. His first class at UT was larger than his entire graduating class at Gibbs High (95 students). Borden’s aptitude in math led him to majoring in engineering.
“I’m very proud to be a graduate from the University of Tennessee. I’ve been proud to serve on the CEE Board of Advisors, and proud of the difference the graduates have made in the lives of communities,” Borden said. “When you look at producing and pouring into lives of young people to start their career in an engineering field, Tennessee does an outstanding job. The university trains people to grow and to be leaders.”
Borden has never forgotten the public welfare oath he took when he became a civil engineer. Every project he’s worked on centers around making lives better and serving the community. Any time he travels throughout the region, he sees transportation landmarks that stir memories.
“I have worked on huge geotechnical projects, and I’ve worked on small turn lanes in communities. They all mean a lot and leave a mark,” Borden said. “It’s rewarding when you go back and analyze your safety projects and say, ‘We reduced crashes by 80%,’ because each number is a person. Each number is somebody’s mom, somebody’s dad, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s son. They get to go home because you did something right.”
Although he could have never anticipated the ferocity of Hurricane Helene, Borden is grateful for how everyone at TDOT rallied together to help rebuild the region. From restoring bridges to rescuing citizens to reopening major highways, the effort allowed Borden to leave TDOT knowing he gave his all.
“It goes back to finding what you love doing and have a passion to do,” Borden said. “Being at the department for 34 years, and in my role at Lochner, I’ve been blessed to work in communities and make a difference.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (rpotkey@utk.edu)