CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — There may have been a cause for concern when State Highway 286 detour to Route 181 was temporarily closed Monday. But a Harbor Bridge Project official said it only happened because of an unusual amount of rain.
The Harbor Bridge Project made the decision to close the detour route, on Monday morning, after the area began flooding. Traffic was rerouted to Comanche Street for roughly a half hour.
Public information officer Lynn Allison said it was in the interest of public safety after seeing all the wind and debris come in from Tropical Storm Nicholas. She said they had begun planning on how to address these situations when they learned of the impending storm.
“We had a crew on standby watching this area as it is one of lower elevation areas and we think city wide," said Allison. "We were ready to put our traffic control plan in place if we had any issues and we just verged on concern of safety and the traveling public.”
She doesn’t expect this to be an issue for average rainfall events. That’s because the drainage portion of the project will progress as construction moves on. The plan is to have that system connect to the Salt Flat Channel.
"When you have a tropical storm with 2 inches of rain coming down in one area, in the center of a construction zone, something like this is inevitable at times," said Allison.
Allison asks travelers remain cautious in construction zones and go slow, especially with traffic patterns changing around the Harbor Bridge Project.
