By Emmett Hayes, Citizen
The Picayune Item
PICAYUNE —
Editor:
And to all officials that have to do with starting Contraflow traffic.
Do not, do not do Contraflow traffic. Let the people go on about their way, they know where they are going.
Contraflow traffic is just four lanes of cars stacked up on the interstate with no where to go, you pull up and stop, pull up and stop, finally you just stop and sit there. It takes hours just to nowhere. My family and I left for Katrina and go past Poplarville cross over in pretty good time and went on our way. But for Gustaf, it was a nightmare, we left Picayune at 1 p.m. and was going to go up Highway 11, but the road was closed at McNeill, which was stupid, so we were sent to I-59, and went up the southbound side, we went and stopped, went and stopped, and finally just stopped and sat there.
Men were relieving themselves on the side of the road and one little lady was jumping brush piles trying to find a place to squat behind. I don’t know if she ever did or not, so that brings the need for porta-potties, along the way, in several places. Park a flat bed trailer and tie the porta-potties to them. With the traffic going just south of Hattiesburg, this time it will be twice the nightmare. Don’t even think about closing the exits, let people get off and use restrooms, buy gas, and snacks, then they will go on their way. There needs to be motorcycle patrols along the way if it is not raining. There were real nice law officers at Exit 126 that sent us east on Highway number 18 over to Highway number 45 to Meridian. We connected with Interstate number 20 east of Meridian with no bad traffic and went on over to Alabama to our destination.
As I said, we left home at 1 p.m. and passed north Poplarville at 5 p.m., 4 hours to Poplarville. It will probably take 8 to 10 hours to Hattiesburg his time.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know something else needs to be done. There needs to be good traffic control at the cross over point. Instead of 4 lanes trying to merge into 2 lanes, stop one side for a few minutes and let the other side take off and get out of the way, then stop the other side, etc., etc.
Been there and done that!!!
Emmett Hayes
Picayune
