Irene’s Aftermath: I-87 Traffic Chaos

For the late summer crowd – northbound from the flat lands – getting to Schroon today was virtually impossible. There are multiple sections of the Northway closed due to flooding  – and the NY Thruway Authority isn’t saying when the road will be re-opened. On top of that alternate routes are closed due to trees and power lines being down

The Batson Family -- minus me --  spent four and a half excruciating hours in their minivan after setting out from Montclair, NJ -- and only made it to Suffern, NY.  They were directed via orange cones to I-287 south. And that’s when the journey became like the film Ground Hog Day – at every turn.

From Annette Batson:

“It was horrible I felt like a rat in a maze. You’d turn down one road, there’d be a road block, you’d turn down another street, another road block. The scene kept repeating itself”.

Not even the family GPS, aka “Betty” was of any use.

“So we tried to get a road map and the only one available from a gas station was of the Eastern United States. It didn’t have anywhere near the details we needed. We stopped at a hotel and were told to head out on route 10. It took us forever to get to route 10, and then we hit ANOTHER ROAD BLOCK. We then called a family in Albany and they suggested we should be OK if we got on Route 9 – but there was no way to get to there from where we were".

 The family plans to try again – on Wednesday