Jackson Free Press

On the Gambit Weekly blog, New Orleans evacuees are complaining that the contraflow plan fell apart in Mississippi today. "Huck" wrote:

I am livid with the information we are receiving from the authorities and the media about traffic on I-59. We left our home at 3:45am and didn't get to Hattiesburg until 1:00pm. The contraflow, which we took, was a joke. It only lasted about 10 miles or so, and was bumper-to-bumper from start to finish.
And authorities and media keep saying how wonderful contraflow is and keep downplaying the reports by drivers that there is serious traffic problems on I-59. It is irresponsible and potentially fatal to families to continue to tell them to evacuate at this time and to tell them that it is safe to go down I-59. People will run out of gas. People will not even be able to outrun the storm at this point.
It is a travesty. They are lying. And I'm tired and angry.

Then tonight about 10 p.m., another post with contraflow nightmare stories:

I-59 is seriously phucked. We're at a sickening crawl, major stop-and-go.

Now passing through Carriere, MS. Had to tend to my cat. She was overheating, since we had to turn off the a/c. We were at a complete stop for 20 minutes. My partner got out to talk to some people and it seems that contraflow had not officially started yet. We're in the South-bound lane, now going faster than the "correct" side of I-59. Five minutes later and we're traveling at about the same speed, 10-15 MPH, with plenty of stopping.
If you are leaving and know of backroads that are not closed, take them. We've been driving for 3.5 hours.

On Twitter, "reliefsparknola" testifies:
Still on I-59 trying to get to Birmingham. 17 + hours. According to nola.com over 200,000 pp on this hwy now.

I've been listening to similar stories on WWL-AM with furious evac-ers calling in to host Deke Bellavia. Just heard someone tell Deke another tale of freeway offramps being closed to traffic.
Nola.com's on it, too. A commenter notes:

The Gov. of Miss. violated the interstate commerce clause by shutting down I-10 Est at 10 pm on Saturday night.
This was done so Louisiana people weren't clogging the interstate for Miss. residents.

THis is wring, and caused me to sit in traffic for 12 hrs.

I don't know anything about interstate law, but the sheer number of stories coming through email, Web sites, and Twitter indicate that something ain't right on the I-59. Whatever the case, people did what they were told to do by state and national officials, were well-prepared for unpleasant but not intolerable conditions, and were met with an automotive nightmare instead.

Previous Comments

ID

134855

Comment

A few minutes ago, WAPT's Megan West was interviewing a woman in the Coliseum who was complaining that they sat on the interstate not moving for four hours. She was very upset about it. I don't know if/how that plays in the contraflow complaints by the Gambit folks.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-09-01T12:11:21-06:00

ID

134900

Comment

And where is our lying mayor? I can't believe he has not dipped into this. Maybe he remembers Katrina and how he turned that into a big laugh.

Author

jada

Date

2008-09-01T21:39:28-06:00

ID

134904

Comment

The Gov. of Miss. violated the interstate commerce clause by shutting down I-10 Est at 10 pm on Saturday night. This was done so Louisiana people weren’t clogging the interstate for Miss. residents. That's just foul. Are LA lives worth less than MS lives?

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-09-02T06:52:05-06:00

ID

134912

Comment

I lived in Louisina for Kitrina and Rita. Mississippi was the one that got hit the worst. I moved to Ms. So please leave our great state alone. We should take care of our own first. that is what Louisiana Is doing. Our gov. has quite a load on his shoulders. Thank you very much.

Author

bware

Date

2008-09-02T08:29:29-06:00