I-90 closed for 20 hours so far....

Eldon (WA) · Sep 15, 2014

Tanker truck leaking hazardous material (ANHYDROUS TRIMETHYLAMINE) was stopped at the eastern WA weigh station yesterday at 1:30 pm. I-90 was closed as a precaution...and is still closed in both directions. They can't find the right coupling to fix the leak. Traffic is re-routed with a lot of it coming down our 35 mph road. Bumper to bumper since early this morning. What would we do in a real crisis???

Chris(WA) · Sep 15, 2014

Many people would die Eldon...
Amazing how precarious and overloaded the
Interstate system is. You should try Snoqualmie
Pass with an accident in bad weather.
If there was a disaster evacuation...I'm staying
home!

Mike (WA) · Sep 15, 2014

I-5 from Seattle south through Chehalis used to be stop and go during "rush" hours, now is much of the time, especially weekends. Went to the Cougar game in Pullman this weekend, went the "southern route"- White Pass, Moxee, Hanford Reach, to Othello, then on to Pullman. Used to go I-5 and I-90, but just too congested anymore. And during an emergency, better not even get on it- you'd be a "sittin' duck".

Dick2 · Sep 15, 2014

A sensor failed during the heavy rain a week ago and a section of I-10 flooded about 4 ft. deep. Motorists were left on their own to find a way around the closed section.

ADOT has flood control equipment pumping stations to pump out standing water on the freeways, but the sensor failed to allert the pumps.

Some of those pumping stations have huge Waukesha engines that run on natural gas. Some of the runoff water collects in tunnels or natural quarry pits for pumping later. I bought an 8" pump with a JD Diesel engine; when they pumped those storage reservoirs, that 8" pump ran around the clock for 8 days straight to empty one of the reservoirs.

Too many people think that we don't need flood control in the desert - and we don't until we get heavy rains.

Forecast is for another heavy rain for wednesday of this week, which will cause more flooding as the ground is now saturated from the rain we had last week.

Steve@Advance · Sep 15, 2014

The Houston/Galveston area is a prime example of too many people/cars and not enough roads. Not only is that an area with huge chemical and petroleum production, which also makes it a prime terrorist target, but it is also a hurricane magnet!

The only real route in and out is I45. A few years ago there was a bad hurricane, caught a lot of people off guard, they mostly rode it out. Then a few months later another hurricane was forecast, they tried to use the "hurricane evac route", everybody get out of town fast!

Guess what happened... Massive gridlock! People stuck for days, cars overheated, ran out of gas, abandoned on the freeway...

The forecast turned out to be wrong. It did hit but caused minimal damage. But if it had been a bad one, far more lives would have been lost from the people in stranded cars.

Traditional Farmer · Sep 15, 2014

In a real crisis nationwide or just multistate there
would be many that die of starvation or exposure if it happened in the Winter.Amazing how little prepared most people are to do with without electricity,food and water for a few days.

Fergienewbee · Sep 15, 2014

Coming back from Evart yesterday, ran in to road construction. Sign noted "Left lane closed 4 miles." Everyone began moving over. At the two mile mark, a white car and a PU pulled out of the bumper to bumper right lane into the left. The white car crept along and stopped like he wanted in. Guy in front of me left him a big gap. The car and truck kept up the creep/stop for over a mile. Guy in front kept the space open. Finally, the truck turned off on an "Authorized Vehicle" crossing and went back north. Car kept his go/stop pace until he finally forced his way in. Why can't these jerks just get over like everybody else? They sure didn't save any time. These guys drive me nuts! Grrrrrr!!!!!

Larry

Mike (WA) · Sep 15, 2014

Believe it or not, traffic engineers (my son is one) would rather everyone just proceed in all lanes until you actually get to the bottleneck, then alternatively let each other in. This keeps traffic moving better, and reduces the backup- the less time traffic is choked down, the less backup you get. 4 miles is WAY too far to have the warning- 1/2 mile max, and some do far less, to avoid just what you described- traffic reduced to one lane for 4 miles, instead of the much shorter distance of actual construction.

mkirsch · Sep 15, 2014

It would work even better if everyone just got over BEFORE you hit the bottleneck, while traffic is still spread out and there is plenty of room. Then traffic could slide right through the bottleneck at speed with ZERO slowdowns.

Problem is you always have some group of a-holes who think they are more important than everyone else, see the empty lane, go zipping through past everyone to save themselves 15 seconds, then try to wedge in at the last moment. THAT is where the slowdowns and bottlenecks happen.

Mike (WA) · Sep 15, 2014

See my post below. That's exactly what traffic engineers WANT you to do. There's gonna be a slowdown anyhow, because you usually can't compress 2 lanes into one- just too many cars. So make the slowdown as short as possible, by folks squeezing in when they get there.

Traditional Farmer · Sep 15, 2014

Thats wishful thinking,ever driven in and around
DC? You get hung out in the wrong lane NO one is going to let you anywhere and if they did everyone for 1/2 mile behind them would blowing their horn.

john in la · Sep 15, 2014

In a real crisis you are better off staying home.

NCWayne · Sep 16, 2014

Some years back they had one lane of a busy intestate/highway connector closed down to one lane. The funny thing is the sign said that the right lane was closed ahead, but it was actually the left lane that was closed. Believe it or not there was absolutely no traffic jam because quite a few folks decided to stay in the closed lane until the last second. The result was that the amount of us us that moved to the open lane was far lower than the amount of folks that moved to the closed lane, so when we finally got to the actual merge point we were all actually able to get through without any problem.

How or why it worked as smoothly as it did, I don't have a clue, but it did work.....

Bret4207 · Sep 16, 2014

I avoid these headaches by not living anywhere even close to places like those pictured.

Tim in OR · Sep 16, 2014

Here in Portland, they are closing lanes on the surface streets to make room for bycycles. The do gooders are doing their best to get people out of their cars. Doing local deliverys with a 4 axle truck or 8 axle truck/trailer is getting harder every day.
Tim in OR

I-90 closed for 20 hours so far....

Eldon (WA)

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Chris(WA)

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Mike (WA)

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Dick2

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Steve@Advance

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Traditional Farmer

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Fergienewbee

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Mike (WA)

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mkirsch

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Mike (WA)

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Traditional Farmer

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john in la

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NCWayne

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Bret4207

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Tim in OR

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