Baton Rouge Traffic and NOLA evacuation Plan

[LSU2001]

New hurricane evacuation plan may not help BR traffic


By BRETT TROXLER
btroxler@wbrz.com
2theadvocate.com staff
From a report by WBRZ's Ben Lemoine

A new plan to help residents get out of New Orleans faster during a hurricane evacuation may not help traffic in the Baton Rouge area, Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday.
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"Our traffic engineers came to the conclusion it really is not going to improve the situation," said Mark Lambert of DOTD. "You can only get so many cars over the 12-mile bridge in LaPlace. And once you reach that capacity, trying to extend the contraflow operation to Baton Rouge does not do anything in terms of allowing more cars to get out of New Orleans."

Instead the contra flow evacuation out of New Orleans will allow residents to use all lanes to go north on I-59 from Slidell or on I-10 from Metairie to LaPlace then north on I-55. Despite the new plan, traffic in Baton Rouge is not expected to be improved.

"We know there's still going to be traffic," Lambert said. "There will be traffic jams. What we're hoping is that the delays will not be as long. There's no way you can avoid the traffic jams when you're putting this many people on the roads."

[MGC]

Which way would you go if you were living in New Orleans and a Cat 4-5 was headed towards the city from the south or southeast? If you go north on I-55 or I-59 and stop in Mississippi, the hurricane will eventually find you. Ask the people who left the Mississippi coast for Camille and went north to Jackson only to find themselves still in the storm. Going west on I-10 beyond Baton Rouge is the preferred evacuation route. I'd much rather head away from the storm in a perpendicular manner. Really, counterflow should be opened on I-10 to the Texas boarder. Every time the so called experts devise a plan to evacuate it fails. None of the planners take into consideration which way the evacuee is most likely to travel.......MGC

[LAwxrgal]

Which way would you go if you were living in New Orleans and a Cat 4-5 was headed towards the city from the south or southeast? If you go north on I-55 or I-59 and stop in Mississippi, the hurricane will eventually find you. Ask the people who left the Mississippi coast for Camille and went north to Jackson only to find themselves still in the storm. Going west on I-10 beyond Baton Rouge is the preferred evacuation route. I'd much rather head away from the storm in a perpendicular manner. Really, counterflow should be opened on I-10 to the Texas boarder. Every time the so called experts devise a plan to evacuate it fails. None of the planners take into consideration which way the evacuee is most likely to travel.......MGC

Hi MGC, my (ex)-boyfriend had the same problem. He was in the pile of traffic leaving lower Lafourche Parish (LA) for Georges and ended up going to coastal Mississippi toward the storm. He'd have been better off staying where he was.

[CajunMama]

Which way would you go if you were living in New Orleans and a Cat 4-5 was headed towards the city from the south or southeast? If you go north on I-55 or I-59 and stop in Mississippi, the hurricane will eventually find you. Ask the people who left the Mississippi coast for Camille and went north to Jackson only to find themselves still in the storm. Going west on I-10 beyond Baton Rouge is the preferred evacuation route. I'd much rather head away from the storm in a perpendicular manner. Really, counterflow should be opened on I-10 to the Texas boarder. Every time the so called experts devise a plan to evacuate it fails. None of the planners take into consideration which way the evacuee is most likely to travel.......MGC

Hwy. 90 out of NO to Lafayette to I-10...like they did last year for Ivan. Now the traffic was a nightmare when they got to Lafayette but they've been working on how to get the traffic to flow better. With a mass evacuation unfortunately there's going to be traffic jams. It's unrealistic to think there wouldn't be. Those who live along the coastline need to be prepared to leave earlier rather than waiting until the last minute.