Overnight Rains Cause Big Problems In I-35 Construction Zone
DALLAS COUNTY (CBS 11 NEWS) - Carrollton police say rainwater, backing up from a construction site on Interstate-35E near Beltline Road, snarled traffic for several hours during the Monday morning commute and may have contributed to accidents on the stretch of interstate.
A police officer's dash camera captured a long line of traffic behind a couple of wrecks and flooded road.
"Any time you have a car moving at interstate speeds and it hydroplanes it could be a catastrophic crash and this morning we were fortunate that nobody was severely injured," said Carrollton Police Cmdr. Doug Mitchell. "We had water pool in the left lane and center lane causing cars to hydroplane and go out of control."
Traffic was forced to crawl past the wrecks and water, single-file, in the outside lane.
Police called the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the contractor. But they said it wasn't until10 a.m. before the water could be drained.
"Drainage has not been well maintained in the area for several years," said Stephen Fashoro, spokesman for 35-Express which monitors issues on the interstate.
Fashoro said AGL is the contracting company working on the project.
"AGL is addressing the ponding over the next few days and we have equipment and resources available to address future rain events," Fashoro said.
"The plan now is just to monitor it, periodically have a patrol officers go by and check on it, especially if it starts raining again," Mitchell said. "And if it seems the water is pooling we'll put a call out to the contractor and we'll get the lanes blocked off earlier this time hopefully."
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