Bridge tender Lottie Glover spots 

 the light of a vessel just as it comes into 

 view, south of the Surf City bridge. She 

 hops from her perch on the elevated 

 chair and moves to the window to 

 watch the boat approach. 



At night, it's hard to determine 

 whether or not a boat can slide beneath 

 the bridge's span. But, three short 

 blasts of a horn minutes later remove 

 any doubt and Glover moves to her 

 control panel. 



She blasts the bridge horn three 

 times and begins turning the knobs and 

 levers that light the panel in 

 Christmassy reds and greens. 



First, Glover turns on the red lights 

 at each end of the bridge and 

 simultaneously a bell begins clanging 

 to warn motorists to stop. She then 

 checks up and down the bridge to make 

 sure no cars are on the bridge before 

 lowering the gates. 



"You have to be real careful," 

 Glover says, "because when the lights 

 go on and the bells start ringing some 

 people go crazy trying to see how fast 

 they can get across the bridge." 



A clanking thud announces that the 

 wedges balancing the bridge in place 

 have been removed. A whining hum 

 begins as the bridge starts its 90° turn. 



Once the bridge stops, a trawler 

 moves through the opening. Lottie 

 takes note of its name and waits for the 

 trawler to clear the bridge before re- 

 versing the process that ends with traf- 

 fic streaming across the bridge. 



The whole process takes eight 

 minutes. Lottie logs the amount of 

 time the bridge was opened, the 

 weather conditions, the name and kind 

 of boat, and the number of cars stop- 

 ped for the opening. 



"There is a lot more to bridge 

 tending that most people think," 

 Glover says. "You have a lot of lives in 

 your hands when you control both 

 water and road traffic." 



Glover, a resident of Surf City, has 

 been tending the bridge for two years. 

 She is the only woman employed by 

 the state as a full-time bridge tender. 



The boat captains Glover talks to 

 over the bridge's two-way radio are 

 usually surprised to find a woman 

 operating the bridge, she says. 



Glover says she took the job because 

 "it was something different to do." 

 "And," she adds, "I've enjoyed every 

 minute of it." 



But Glover has found that there are 

 some drawbacks to the job. "I've been 

 cursed at, honked at and hassled over 



the telephone by drivers who thought I 

 held the bridge open too long, but I 

 pay it no mind," she says with a grin. 



Glover isn't the only bridge tender 

 who has to listen to motorists' com- 

 plaints, says Jimmy Lee, head of the 

 N.C. Department of Transportation's 

 bridge maintenance unit. 



What most motorists don't realize is 

 that in all but emergency cases, water 

 traffic has the right-of-way over road 

 traffic, according to the Coast Guard's 

 regulations for navigable waters. 



"It is much easier to stop a car than 

 it is to stop a tug pulling a string of 

 barges," Lee says. 



The only exception to the water 

 right-of-way is the heavily-traveled 

 drawbridge at Atlantic Beach. Tenders 

 there open the bridge on demand for 

 commercial vessels and boats in dis- 

 tress. They also open the bridge on de- 

 mand for recreational vessels, except 

 on summer days between 8 a.m. and 8 

 p.m., when the bridge opens hourly. 



Motorists aren't the only ones who 

 cause problems. Lee says some open- 

 ings of drawbridges are unnecessary. 



Occasionally boat captains blow for 

 the bridge to be opened without first 

 lowering apparatus not essential to 

 navigation, such as fishing outrigging 

 and radio antennas, that would have 

 allowed the boat to pass beneath the 

 unopened bridge, he says. 



If this happens, the bridge tender 

 reports the boat's name and number to 

 the nearest Coast Guard commander. 



October is the busiest month for the 

 bridge tenders along the intercoastal 

 waterway. "It seems like I'm opening 

 the bridge every five or ten minutes 

 when the yachts and sailboats start to 

 move south to Florida," Glover says. 



But things quiet down in winter, 

 when water traffic is minimal. It's just 

 as well, though, because when the win- 

 ter storms blow in, with gusts over 30 

 mph, there are times when the bridge 

 can't be opened, Glover says. 



Glover does more than just open the 

 bridge. Once a month she counts all the 

 cars that cross the bridge and she is 

 also responsible on her eight-hour shift 

 for keeping the bridge house clean and 

 for greasing the gears that turn the 

 bridge. "I'm a grease monkey 

 sometimes, too," she says. 



Glover, who claims to be just "a 

 plain ol' Tar Heel," says she plans to 

 be a bridge tender as long as she can. 

 "They're going to have a hard time 

 getting rid of me," she says. 



