Filmed during a live milling operation on Highway 11, the episode takes viewers inside a work zone where crews operate heavy equipment just feet from moving traffic. As daylight fades and lane closures go up, the realities of nighttime highway work come into focus, including limited visibility, tight workspaces, and the constant presence of vehicles traveling at highway speeds.
The episode features GreyRock Milling and explores what it takes to safely execute nighttime operations, from equipment selection and crew coordination to the importance of lighting and situational awareness. Brandon also steps into the operator’s seat himself, offering a firsthand look at the skill, focus, and trust required to work under these conditions.
Beyond the machinery, Real Danger centers on the people behind the work and the risks they face every shift. It highlights why work zone safety matters, not just for contractors and crews, but for every driver passing through a construction zone after dark.
This episode serves as both an inside look at nighttime highway milling and a reminder that road work zones are active job sites, where real people are working to keep the infrastructure moving and expect to return home safely at the end of the night.
XXX
Unknown Speaker 0:17
With the sound of music, with songs they have sung for 1000 years. The Hills fill my heart
Unknown Speaker 0:30
with the sound of music.
Speaker 1 0:40
Million on the roads of Tennessee.
Unknown Speaker 0:47
I mean, you basically milled everywhere in the country.
Brandon 0:49
Now, just give me a banjo. I'll play a banjo while I may not be all the way, right. All right, I've made a bit of a fool of myself.
Speaker 2 1:07
I've been making plenty of mistakes, so I knew you weren't gonna get it the first time. That would be insane.
Brandon 1:13
I should be looking better than this. I feel on
Brandon 1:26
today's episode of no edge lines, we're going to be filming under conditions that we've never done before. We're going to be on some awesome milling machines about an hour outside of Knoxville, working on highway 11 during the night. Now anybody who's worked on any roadways knows that is some of the most dangerous type of work that you can do. We're going to be here with gray rock milling Griffin Hopkins has been gracious enough to invite me out here to do something is really crazy. Have a total amateur be up on the milling machines in the middle of the night on a highway in the mountains. Good luck to us all. Expand.
Speaker 3 2:02
This
Brandon 2:08
is your business. Yes, sir, and we you and I had a conversation a while back that you were instructed not to do this. Yes. Now you don't have to necessarily name drop who told you not to do that, so
Speaker 4 2:20
I don't care, so I'll say it. So I probably got one of the best dads a kid could ever ask for. I mean, phenomenal. You can ask for somebody better. He grew up. We grew up paving. He's been in paving business now almost 30 years. Have a pretty successful paving company back home. And we always had a milling machine for ourselves, but it was kind of one of those things. It was, you know, for what we were doing. We milled, you know, city streets, parking lots, but we never had our own asshole, nothing like this, nothing like this. So we started kind of talking, chit chat back and forth about it. And he's like, I just don't know if it's a great idea, you know, maybe it could, maybe not, because it's a big investment to mill. I mean, how big of an investment are we talking so we have probably a little over $5 million tied up in milling, in your in your milling fleet. So we started this thing about five years ago, roughly, and it's, it's grown pretty, pretty large in five years.
Brandon 3:04
A lot of guys who are in the paving sphere, yeah, this is a scary, but an enticing level up.
Speaker 4 3:12
It's a pretty cutthroat industry, and I think everybody in this industry knows that. So it's not easy being the, you know, the small guy, the new guy on the block, coming in and trying to get in with these big contractors. But our big thing was, hey, we're gonna do quality work. We're gonna do what we say. We're gonna provide a good product, and we're gonna, you know, let that kind of speak for itself. Sitting right here in front of us, we got 200 fi and we also got 210 i That's a 2017 model, and that's a 23 model working kills it, man. Every time they come out with a new machine, it's always better. We just bought a brand new 220 XFI with a 12 Foot drum underneath it. The reason we went with that 220 versus a 250 is transportation is a big thing, right? I mean, that machine's a heavy machine. It's a little over 100,000 pounds with the dual speed transmission, and that John Deere motor, that machine has got plenty of power. We got some Hard Mix up here in East Tennessee, and it cuts to it like it's nothing.
Brandon 4:01
Talk to me a little bit about like, the scope of today's project is, I mean, but we're doing a highway job in the fucking
Speaker 4 4:07
mountains, so we're gonna get out here as soon as I start pulling the lane closures and everything. It's normally, you know, two to five inches of deep patching. This thing's getting patched an inch and a quarter. The road's in, honestly, in pretty good shape. Some of these little like potholes and rough spots where the state has came back and previously patched the road before. So then when we come by and mill, then we're gonna shave them all off and everything's gonna give a really good smooth surface. This one, these are based off tonnage. We everything we do is based off tonnage. So we're looking at about roughly about 600 tons of deep patching.
Brandon 4:35
This is insane, yeah. Like, I'm like, looking at this, and I'm like, I'm freaking out a little bit. Freaking out just a little bit.
Speaker 4 4:44
No, it's, it's not bad at all. It's fun, man, when they start coming up here and pulling the lane closures and getting everything going on, it's a it's a cool sight to see. It's, it is dangerous. The good news is we'll start on a slow lane. So we got eight foot shoulder, so we got plenty of room to walk around on.
Brandon 4:57
That's good, because anybody who's watched the show knows that I. Have a history of things up. So if I'm a little nervous, it's not just because of you, yeah, because
Unknown Speaker 5:08
we got plenty off it for you.
Brandon 5:10
If I die, just leave my body in the mountains of Tennessee.
Speaker 4 5:15
I mean, we put you wherever you want to go, man, we'll take care of it. We'll get you something nice. I got to
Brandon 5:22
meet some of your guys. They're all pissing you
Unknown Speaker 5:29
because you
Unknown Speaker 5:32
were late every day. So that's good.
Brandon 5:39
Know? What is this? What is this? This episode is brought to you by portable lighting solutions. They provide a universal 360 degree balloon light that's hand built right here in the United States, originally invented and designed by a construction worker. In the daylight, they may not look like much, but at night, they provide bright islands of light, and, most importantly, safety, visit portable lighting solutions.net or click on the link on the screen to learn more. Doesn't look like the most complex system to put on here. Now, how bright is it really? It's brightest, it's brightest. Put that in the commercial, it's brightest.
Brandon 6:32
Bam and done. I know this might be uncomfortable question, but have you ever had any close calls or things go wrong?
Speaker 4 6:42
So yeah, we've definitely had some. Actually, matter of fact, we were on a night job and mill on the road, and there was a lady, she was a she was drunk. It was on a Tuesday night, and she came flying through the construction zone and jumped probably three feet in front of my conveyor, smashed the back of the dump truck, towed her car, crushed like a pancake, and somehow she didn't put a scratch on her. You know, there's a lot of people that get hurt out here, and it's not a uncommon thing to hear of a death out here. So it's just, you just gotta take it serious. You're out here with, you know, cars dropping 70 miles an hour down beside you. Just want to be safe already. Y'all ready? All right, you wanna hop up on the mill. Let's go.
Unknown Speaker 7:28
No Walker out you're good hands.
Unknown Speaker 7:40
Hot Man, you're good. Hands my second day running this, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 7:52
we'll be fine. Yes, perfect. We're fine. Everybody's safe.
Brandon 7:57
Well, if it's your second day that I've got you by one day. Yeah, you're fine. Yeah, between me and you, there should be no problem. We've got a total of five days. Yeah, we're perfect.
Speaker 4 8:05
This is, this is gonna be no issue. That's the bad thing about this work is parking. Sometimes parking super limited, so you're What if you
Brandon 8:12
didn't have this? Yeah, we've stuck them in the
Speaker 4 8:15
woods before. I can tell you that we park some mill machines in some wild places.
Brandon 8:22
This is This is wild. This is crazy. Like, I don't know if it reads, man, but it is crazy. I shouldn't have eaten Indian food for lunch. I'm like, white knuckling it.
Speaker 4 8:35
Every year we've gotten stronger and more work, you know, built some good relationship with the contractors we work for. Hey, we've had a good opportunity.
Brandon 8:43
So, but how do you make that initial relationship, like when I first
Speaker 4 8:47
started off, dude, I beat down every door I could. From here to Kentucky, you had to go door to door to door, and people used to give me the cold shoulder because I was a young guy, right? So this is actually our first patch, right here, right there, where it says RW, yeah, right there. So where this pink mark is, right here.
Brandon 9:04
I learned this when I was in New Jersey on a job site with Tom Esso, the ground crew almost more important than the guy up here running the button 1000 you got to have a strong support team on the ground knows what they're doing and is communicating.
Unknown Speaker 9:20
That's my high school sweetheart. We got right a number one
Brandon 9:26
couple. He said that you're his platonic soulmate.
Brandon 9:33
Well, listen, you got to have a ground guy you trust. That makes sense, that you know. So you said zero out. And I've heard that before.
Speaker 4 9:42
So basically, what we're going to do, so you see the numbers, so we'll go in here, and we'll watch the back of the drum till it's barely touching the asphalt, which just barely grabbing and it will go in. We'll set those numbers to zero, just to make sure we're cutting our true debt. Because as those teeth wear, you might think you're cutting an inch and a quarter inch and a half, but you're really not, because. The teeth are starting to wear out as the night goes. So we're going to zero that machine out in the beginning of every shift.
Brandon 10:05
I noticed that something's missing,
Speaker 4 10:07
truck, a truck. That's the whole name of this party right here.
Brandon 10:11
Griffin, if you don't mind me asking, yeah, how old are
Unknown Speaker 10:14
you? 24 years old. I'm a baby.
Brandon 10:18
Let's cut we're out. Show's over. We're done.
Speaker 4 10:21
We're leaving. We're done, we'll toaster. We headed back to Ohio.
Brandon 10:24
2424 24 years old. I think something that gets lost in a lot of these conversations today about labor, about entrepreneurship, and the economy and the world that we live in. A lot of people who are 17, yeah, 18 years old have no idea what kind of life they could build. 1,000% working in this
Speaker 4 10:50
industry, when I go interview somebody, I hire my first question I ask them, Well, why are you interested in working here? If they tell me, well, the pay is good, I move on. I want that guy.
Brandon 10:59
There are lots of ways that I might disagree with you, yeah, but I don't in this one way, yeah, I want somebody who wants to be invested here, yes, yes, and I'm gonna pay you well 100% but I need to know that you're you're buying
Speaker 4 11:12
in little fun fact. In five years, we've only had three employees clean.
Brandon 11:16
That's incredible. Stat. Nobody has stats like that. Nobody has three years up here, not getting any dust suppression,
Unknown Speaker 11:26
no. Hey, hey, I don't think the water's on.
Brandon 11:30
You're going about 40 feet a minute. Main Line
Speaker 4 11:33
production milling. We're on about 70 foot a minute. 6570 foot a minute. See, that's
Brandon 11:37
really fast. Now, what are you using as your guideline?
Speaker 4 11:40
So I'm looking at the edge of that guide bar and just kind of putting it on the center of that line that would use the ski know about where that bolt holds. That's about what I'm looking at. If I'm sitting there the whole time staring at that guide bar, then every little crooked move I'm going to want to make, every time you turn that track, you've now put a crooked tool on or you've done something.
Brandon 11:59
I mean, we are. We are right on the edge of the cones. Like, if you look where the cones are and where we are, we're like, right on it. These cars just going past. They're having to move over because we're virtually in their lanes.
Brandon 12:35
Right Tom, I joked with you earlier about only being 24 Yeah. But you ever running in to like challenges in the industry, people disrespecting you 1,000% or not, not giving you enough respect, you feel like 1,000%
Speaker 4 12:52
I mean, being young, when I first started out, it was really bad. I felt like with the people just kind of not respecting you, not really listening to you. I feel like a big thing to earn these guys respect is, is you gotta be able to get there and do everything that you're asking them to do. And if you
Brandon 13:06
can't do that, ask them to do something, yeah, how can they not respect you?
Speaker 4 13:09
Contractors or guys you kind of work for that kind of, oh, he's just a kid
Brandon 13:13
doing this five years, and you're 24 simple math, yeah, you were doing this started when you were 1919, that's correct. And I'm telling you right now, when I was 19, I was
Speaker 4 13:22
ass, yeah, so when I was when I was 19, we started, shouldn't get anybody's respect when I was 19, and it's still this day is a hurdle, right? I mean, I'm young. I walk into your office, so like, well, who's this kid?
Brandon 13:33
You know, what this industry does respect is the work it does. So if they see the work you're doing, yes, and the proof is in that, and that's how you earn people's respect.
Speaker 4 13:44
It is, it is. And these guys have been good to us, and I'm be good to them.
Brandon 14:00
I want to want you to see something, get a good shot of his cut line here, because I'm getting ready to take over, and I want us to have a nice comparison of his cut line versus what mine is going to look like. It's going to look very different. Yet.
Speaker 4 14:14
The old saying is about milling and asphalt, turn it black and don't look back.
Brandon 14:18
I haven't heard that one. What are we waiting? Oh, we're trucks. Now.
Speaker 4 14:22
What trucks? Paving guys, hold us up. Paving guys, it
Unknown Speaker 14:36
is my due diligence.
Unknown Speaker 14:41
Is my due diligence. I think I lost my touch, but I run and run and can't keep up. What if nothing ever waits. It's hard to make the case.
Brandon 15:00
I'm ready. I'm ready. I look like Spongebob, dude, you're ready.
Speaker 4 15:04
Bob, ready to do this like riding a bike. You never forget
Brandon 15:08
that's not true. This is not like riding bikes.
Unknown Speaker 15:11
Don't believe him, just a little bigger bike.
Brandon 15:14
Nothing about this is like a bike. Absolutely zero thing. It's been a year since I last ran a work and shout out to Tom and the boys at New Jersey. All right, he's gonna get me lined up.
Speaker 4 15:28
We'll get you lined up. We'll set you up for success. Can you kind of see where that black is in some sense, yeah. But that black, yeah, don't follow that crack bill, yeah? So try to follow the inside of that white line, like right here, like the outside, even right? Yeah, the outside, my bad, sorry, outside of the white line. Follow the outside of the white line. You'll be good, nervous.
Speaker 4 15:55
Okay, so I'm gonna auto it up for you. You got this, no problem. I need to get
Brandon 15:59
a sense for it. Okay? I'm nervous.
Speaker 5 16:05
Talk is cheap, but it's hard to complain if I never speak. Give me something too and I
Brandon 16:13
feel like I've already over corrected too much. Once you do it, once you make too much of an overcorrection, then the whole time you're doing this. My ground guy, he's helping me out, but I'm only going 34 feet a minute. You know what? I agree with you about looking ahead. That's a lot better, because by the time you're looking down here, you're already too late. 100% if I make a correction up here, there's time exactly.
Speaker 4 16:41
That's the thing looking down there. So that's in it. Oh, that truck's pulled out like a pro
Brandon 16:47
with a lot of help. And
Unknown Speaker 16:49
you did that all on your own. We need another mill operate right now. Listen, think we should hire. Hey, listen,
Brandon 16:57
I I'm sure you guys pay more than when I get paid to do what I do. So, you know, we can negotiate later. All right now I gotta raise up.
Speaker 4 17:05
Nope, we're good. We're now. We're not to the end yet. That truck was full, so wait another one.
Brandon 17:12
Here I was I was thinking I had a little bit of time to, like, get my courage.
Speaker 4 17:17
Here we go. You kind of want to boom a little center of the truck that way, yes, and then press that button. Go forward.
Brandon 17:27
I'm having a look at the screen. I'm looking at my line.
Unknown Speaker 17:32
I'm up to 30 feet a minute. Doing good Bob. You're killing it.
Brandon 17:37
I'm hitting him right in the back of the head. Basically, he's
Unknown Speaker 17:41
got one working way. He's been fronting him. To The Max,
Unknown Speaker 17:46
waste insignificance.
Brandon 17:57
This is the most confident I have felt. I feel really good. That's not a good sign. I could off right now. See, look, chaos is chaos is already ensuing. That's all right. We got a broom.
Unknown Speaker 18:11
We got an ACBM back there.
Brandon 18:13
We're good. What? What should I have done when that happened? Just gotta make sure you're stopping the truck before that's the thing. And juggling the truck, juggling the conveyor, you're having to think about so many things. All right, here we go, coming up to the line. Then we're gonna have to see the aftermath. That's all How do I stop? I just pull it back. I forgot how to come to a stop. You.
Unknown Speaker 18:44
A dad, a baby. Oh, man,
Unknown Speaker 18:50
hey, straight as an air, right? There's
Brandon 18:54
a little waviness to it, hey.
Speaker 4 18:57
Good thing is, I got that magic black stuff. Well, I've been milling out on the
Speaker 1 19:04
roads of Tennessee. I mean, you basically
Unknown Speaker 19:08
milled everywhere in the country. Now,
Brandon 19:14
give me a banjo. I'll play banjo while I may
Speaker 4 19:30
ready, sweet, yeah, I'll get in here with you first. Okay, all right, you jump into the captain's seat. Let's do this.
Brandon 19:39
Wait what side you want me to get on driver's side, all right, I wasn't really expecting this, but I guess I'm gonna drive
Unknown Speaker 19:47
this straight into it.
Speaker 4 19:56
Stays easy to run. It's gonna blow your mind out. You. Just
Brandon 20:06
not mad about the AC.
Speaker 4 20:08
So on this thing, it's automatic, so just put your foot on the brake. It's on. We'll press that chance of rain 40% put it reverse, and now just back up. You're good, yeah. So just kind of the biggest thing is, just like, watch your mirrors and make sure you get another light trap. Everything else. You don't have to have a commercial light. No, not this one. It's under CDL, believe
Brandon 20:30
it or not, that's how my immediate thought was.
Speaker 4 20:33
So like, for me also, honestly, dude, like, when I'm on stuff like this, and I can drive to, by the way, on this side, so stuff happens, I'm good. But honestly, dude, I just always try get over closer to shoulder side, because you gotta worry about hearing nothing. Yeah, we'll sweep it now. What about all this panel, all this so all that's for, like, adjustments on stuff, but we'll sweep it now. So the biggest thing about about these that can't even hear it, oh, these things are Cadillacs to kind of make sure, kind of go around the coach too. It's okay.
Speaker 5 21:07
Anyway, hard time. I've got the code this,
Speaker 4 21:18
ACM will sweep it up. These things are a monster. Keep sweeping. We're gonna keep sweeping.
Unknown Speaker 21:42
Okay? I implemented that code
Unknown Speaker 21:53
successfully. Everybody.
Speaker 6 22:14
He said, All you guys went to high school together. You guys ever fight? We fought before we fought before we fought
Brandon 22:24
before. You know, people a long time. It's like family.
Brandon 22:57
Like there's the paving crew down there taking all the trucks.
Speaker 4 23:05
They don't care about the bill of guys. Nobody likes the bill of guys, like
Brandon 23:12
the black sheep we go by. I'm gonna be like, right? It's crazy. As the sun has set, how much cooler it feels. We were getting roasted. But we have this beautiful light keeping us well lit. The darker it gets, the brighter that's gonna see
Speaker 4 23:28
that puppy will light up the wall. Let me tell you that thing, it's crazy bright. I'm glad we have it. Oh yeah, it's awesome, man. I mean, dude, it's it's got so many benefits, you know, also just the guys gonna see what they're doing, but the safety factor of it now it's really light. The guy, light the guy up on the ground, and cars be able to see him.
Brandon 23:45
And this gives you 360 degree illumination, 100% we've
Speaker 4 23:49
ran a lot of different lights over the years, and this is by far been the best light. It looks brand new. And that thing's two years old. That light is two summers, two summers. It looks brand new. It's insane. Honestly, it's probably got 1000 hours of working time on it, and it's still going strong. Still going strong. It's got a long time left on it. Am I holding you up? What's low?
Unknown Speaker 24:30
You want to say, I
Speaker 7 24:54
hope someday you come back down. Here,
Speaker 4 25:04
right here. Sometimes it just happens. So we're gonna get ready to change it out. Hitting in. Can break the carbide on and weaken the tooth. That's probably I'm gonna say. What happened on this one right here. I changed the tooth. Well, come on, of course, you can get in here. What do I do? So all you're gonna do is take this gun right here, put it in there, hammer it out.
Brandon 25:29
Sometimes it can feel like your America is the America, like your experiences are the same ones. Everyone is having that the way you see the world is the way the world truly is. But then you go and see it for yourself, not just as a tourist or a visitor. I mean, maybe I started out as one, but not now. No, it feels different now, statistically, this kind of work is one of the most deadly and dangerous in the nation. Every time they clock in, it's taking a significant risk. Work Zone accidents happen all the time, people speeding, distracted on their phones or impaired. So just remember the next time you're driving along the highway at night and you see a sign for road work ahead, that is people like Griffin, Logan Noah and the gray rock crew just doing their jobs, fixing the very roads you drive on and wanting to go home to their families at the end of the shift, your destination isn't more important than a road worker's life, so do your part and slow down. Pay attention and keep them safe. It's likely the first thing you'll see is the bright light in the dark.
Brandon 27:08
The worst part about that is my knee, my First broken Millie to Millington. That was the instant change.
