The Omega Road overpass crosses Interstate 75 just south of Tifton in Tift County, at the exit for Omega Road and Moultrie (Exit 61). It is an ordinary concrete highway bridge carrying local traffic over the interstate. In 1977 a field team from the South-Central Georgia Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center documented a local legend at this exact spot. Residents told the team that the interstate “screams” here, following an auto accident. The team photographed the Omega Road bridge and recorded the sounds at the location. The Library of Congress holds the slides and the recording. That is the documented record. There is no name, no date, and no accident report attached to the scream.
The story is short. After a wreck on the interstate, drivers and people who stop near the overpass hear a scream that does not come from any visible person. The 1977 field notes place the sound “along Interstate Highway I-75 south of the Omega Road bridge.” No newspaper account from the period names a victim or describes the crash. No later local history has filled in a name. Tifton has other ghost stories—Hickory Springs Primitive Baptist Church and the Tift Theatre among them—but those are separate. The overpass legend is the one the folklife project recorded.
What is documented is a 1977 ethnographic note that the interstate is said to scream at the Omega Road bridge after an auto accident, with photographs and a sound recording made on site. The accident itself is not in the public record under a name. The scream is the story the field team was told.
The Omega Road overpass on I-75 near Tifton.
Relevant links
- Library of Congress: “Screaming bridge,” highway I-75, Tifton, Georgia (South-Central Georgia Folklife Project, 1977) — the field photographs and the note that residents said the interstate screams here after an auto accident
- American Folklife Center: South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection — the broader collection that includes the Tifton recording (AFS 20953)