The Abominable Snowman

Hurricane evacuation routes should be BTAG's priority

When life is fair, the Beaufort County Transportation Advisory Group, BTAG, will take into consideration a basic tenet of hurricane evacuation planning when next deciding which projects on their extensive list should be funded with any taxpayer dollars leftover after the contract for the expansion of U.S. 278 from Simmonsville Road to S.C. 170 is awarded.

Now I realize most citizens have no idea of the existence of such a committee or its purpose since it tends to meet about as often as a sighting of the abominable snowman in the Lowcountry. But suffice to say when this rare happening does occur they are charged with recommending to the full County Council a prioritization of roads projects.

With hurricane season in full force and Tropical Storm Emily bearing down on the region, thoughts of how to best evacuate the folks south of the Broad should be a primary concern. Now it seems to me the idea of a reverse funnel approach is best for this area. Start with the four possible lanes coming off the bridges to Hilton Head Island and expand the escape routes to the maximum.

However with impact fee collection virtually nil due to the economic turndown, the amount of dollars available for any projects has diminished accordingly. Think dry well.

So with the completion of Phase 5A of the Bluffton Parkway and the expansion of U.S. 278, there will be a total of 12 lanes, including S.C. 46, heading in a westerly direction toward the county line and S.C. 170, sounds like a good plan so far.

Currently the plan, once anyone reaches S.C. 170, is to disperse the Sun City folks north toward S.C. 462 and the people coming from the Bluffton- Buckwalter area out S.C. 170 toward Hardeeville.

But wait a minute; the funnel fails because we have six lanes coming into a maximum of two going southwest. Some enterprising individual might want to erect a campground park at the intersection of S.C. 170 and the Bluffton Parkway since it will be total deadlock at that site.

That is of course unless the BTAG does the right thing and moves the expansion of S.C. 170 to at least four lanes from U.S. 278 to the county line. Actually, it should be expanded all the way into Jasper County to reach the intersection with S.C. 46, S.C. 170 and the old S.C. 170-A, where they can begin to disperse in different directions.

If the safe and orderly evacuation of the people south of the Broad River is indeed the primary concern of the BTAG and most importantly County Council, they will move the expansion of S.C. 170 to the top of any future project list and stop considering whether to consider redundant projects like Phase 5B of the Bluffton Parkway just to fix a past mistake. Safety should be first.

The Abominable Snowman

Of all the world's famous monsters and wild men, the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas is among the most elusive. If it does exist in the world's highest elevations, it has the advantage of geographic isolation from human spotters, and is more likely to be able to survive in numbers without having been seen than would a Bigfoot or a Loch Ness Monster, said to live near populated areas. Many local Himalayan people are proven to have a matter-of-fact belief in its existence, as seen by the artifacts and temples of Nepalese Buddhists. Both the Russian and Chinese militaries have expended state resources to investigate it. The fossil record has proven the prehistoric existence of Gigantopithecus in Asia, an ape which appears to be a ominously close match for the reports. And of those adventurers who brave the icy altitudes over 6,000 meters, some have brought back high quality photography of footprints that look simian enough. So what is the truth about the Abominable Snowman? Is it proven one way or the other, or must science consider this to be an unanswered question mark?

There are two kinds of eyewitnesses to Yeti reports, just like to any other event: the honest and the dishonest. Some people lie about or exaggerate a car accident they saw; some may make up or exaggerate a Yeti sighting. They may even create hoax footprints or stage a photograph to fool someone else. Why would someone climb to six or eight thousand meters just to pull off such a dumb stunt? Probably no one would; but people who are there to climb a mountain like to have just as much fun with their friends as people down in the cities. Just as you might dig a fake giant footprint at the beach, so you might carve a perfect Yeti footprint and photograph it next to your ice axe. The most famous such photo, taken in 1951 and which you've probably seen, was taken by Eric Shipton, a notorious practical jokester, who's always avoided direct questions about the print. It's suspiciously perfect, with crisp edges and no indication it was made by a moving foot; and improbably shallow in the soft snow. Shipton and his companion claimed it was one of a long track of prints they came across which they also photographed, but which clearly bear no resemblance to the crisp footprint and which experienced mountaineers identify as a goat track. So hoaxes are a part of the game, but they're not the part that helps us learn whether or not the Yeti actually exists.

Honest reports are better, but often they leave the investigator little to go on; since many of them are honest misidentifications. A distant sighting could be a true Yeti, but it could also have been another climber, a rock, or a known animal. There are at least three species of bear that live in regions where the Yeti has been reported, all of which can stand on their hind legs. The Tibetan blue bear, the Gobi bear, and particularly the Himalayan brown bear all leave strange tracks in the snow and all will forage campsites. In fact, one Japanese researcher, Dr. Matako Nabuka, concluded that the Yeti never existed at all; that its local name meh-teh was just a mispronunciation of meti, one word for the Himalayan brown bear. His view is not widely accepted, but it does illustrate just one more vertex of the puzzle.

The abominable snowman

The Abominable Snowman

The Abominable Snowman

The abominable snowman

The Abominable Snowman