San Jacinto River Bridge closure creating backups

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– From Channelview to Baytown, the complete closure of I-10 has been a nightmare for both the morning and evening rush hour.

As we recover from Tropical Storm Imelda, one of the headaches she left us with is that closure at the San Jacinto River Bridge. A commute of 5-6 miles in this area typically takes a few minutes, but now it’s taking hours.

“Oh yeah, it took about two hours we got a lot of traffic,” says Renaldo Salinas of Dayton.

Tina Schexnayder tells us about her commute home as she stopped for gas in Crosby.

“I left work at 4 o’clock and I am just now, and I am just now getting here, and I still live over in Mont Belvieu,” Schexnayder says.

Bobby Gunther, who came to Crosby from Cleveland, says, “It was a nightmare from 610 and 90 all the way here, it took me two hours to get right here.”

The closure of I-10 at the San Jacinto River Bridge isn’t just a nightmare for truck drivers and passenger cars. It’s caused major delays on local roads as people are trying to cut though. Making it nearly impossible for residents on those streets to make it home on time. 

Angel Sanchez tells FOX 26 about this wife’s commute home.

“She knows just about every route to get home and it took her twice as long to get home today. So I really don’t know what route she took, but she called she said she had to turn around, and go down 146, and she turned around and went another way, went a back road and then she just walked in the door about 10 minutes ago,” Sanchez said.

All of this a result of two barges that broke loose and traveled downstream, hitting the bridge. Drivers are being detoured to allow inspection of the bridge, a process that could take a few weeks.

Residents have no choice but to be patient, but are fed up since this isn’t the first time a barge has hit the bridge. 

“I think government, or I would say Texas should just fine the crap out of them, and they would stop doing it every time it floods. I don’t know if they’re going to do that or not but I hope they would.“ says Gunther.

Road closure information is available on Houston Transtar’s website.

Texas Department of Transportation is conducting inspections to determine the damage, and make repairs before they will announce when the bridge will re-open.