The State Transportation Improvement Plan map for 2018-27, updated June 28, shows a blank for Tyrrell County.

That means, among other things, the project to four-lane U.S. 64 between Columbia and Manns Harbor is not even on NCDOT’s radar for the next decade.

Leroy Spivey, chairman of the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners, lamented July 9 that, over the past six years the U.S. 64 widening project “has gone from fully funded to non-existent.”

He recalled a public meeting that was held in St. John’s Church in Alligator in 2013 in which NCDOT representatives talked directly with landowners about soon buying their homes along the proposed right-of-way.

“And today it isn’t even on DOT’s radar,” he said.

Jim Smith, a Texan who, along with his wife, is residing for a while at his ancestral homestead in Tyrrell County, overheard Spivey and related this story:

A man died and rapidly descended to the nether world. When the door opened, he was aghast —  a snowstorm was in progress and everyone visible was bundled up in parkas.

“What’s going on down here?” He asked incredulously.

And Satan replied, “They’ve just four-laned U.S. 64 between Columbia and Manns Harbor.”