NEW ORLEANS — 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, New Orleans Police, State Police, and DOTD will have extra units out monitoring conditions. Barricades and flares are being positioned out of caution, and if needed, I-10 will be close.
From the beginning, DOTD has told us that large-scale measures like this are difficult. WWL-TV reached out to officials in some of the most fog-prone areas of the country to see how they deal with dense fog.
Washington State DOT understands bad weather conditions, with Seattle being one of the cloudiest major cities in America.
There, they begin alerting drivers of bad weather days in advance.
"We're known for our rain, but we get lots of fog and snow as well," Tina Werner with the agency says. "Siren beacons that are displayed during high winds or fog, or any low visibility... we also have different highway lighting... we make sure to have them lit up and ready to go."
Werner said they will close roads if it's too dangerous to travel, saying, "If there was any safety concerns for travelers in Washington State on any of our highways we would impose closing that state route for safety of travelers and safety of our own road crews."
Officer Andrew Barclay with California Highway Patrol's Golden Gate Division says when visibility is low, officers out there can guide traffic. "One of the things officers can do, if they go out there and just determine that this fog is just so incredibly thick and they need to start physically slowing people down that is something they are able to do. They can run traffic breaks... turn on all their lights and force traffic to slow down behind them," he said.
Louisiana DOTD says they're always looking for ways to improve and keep drivers safe. Scott Boyle with the agency said, "In New Orleans and here in Louisiana, we typically don't have any of those measures in place. We rely on message boards, we rely on the media, we rely on field evaluations... and determine if any of those conditions warrant any type of immediate action such as a road or interstate closure."
He says drivers should expect bad conditions on Wednesday morning. "We're going to be monitoring the weather throughout the night. We staged out some barricades along the interstate, the police will make a call if a road is going to be shut down."
His advice is to take it easy, leave plenty of space between you and the driver in front of you and allow for extra travel time.
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