Heavy-Duty Towing & Recovery — Candler, NC & Western North Carolina

A recovery on a grade is not the same job as a recovery on flat ground. There is often no shoulder, one live lane of traffic moving past at speed, and a hard slope on one side. You cannot always set a wrecker square to the load, and once you are rigged you frequently cannot reposition — so the rigging has to be right the first time. On a grade we work the angles: snatch blocks to redirect the pull, multiple lines to spread the load, and air cushions where the unit has to come up gradually rather than in one pull. Getting that plan right before the first line goes on is what keeps a recovery from turning into a second incident.

On the Old Fort descent that difference is often the difference between a two-hour recovery and a lane closed for most of a shift. If you lose brakes or air on the way down, do not try to make the bottom. Downshift as far as the transmission will take, get off the brakes long enough for them to recover if you still have anything left, and take the runaway ramp. The ramps exist because engineers expected exactly this. A ramp costs you a tow bill; riding it out costs a great deal more.

The Saluda grade on I-26 is shorter but steeper. Northbound units overheat climbing it; southbound loads run away on the way down. Different failure, same cause — too much weight, too much slope, not enough gear. Snow and black ice make both grades worse, and in winter we run winch-outs on the secondary roads feeding them almost as often as on the interstate itself.