re: What do they do about all the people stuck on the bridge?

Yep. State trooper fella we know stopped to help a motorist in late 80s or so. 18 wheeler locked the brakes up and started sliding. Only place to go was over the aide. Him and the driver jumped over.

Maybe not 20 hours, but backing up miles and miles of cars would take a long arse time to get to the front, depending on how far from the crossover they are

And.....get off your damn phone and pay 100% attention to the road/driving !

I was stuck on that bridge a couple years ago... Don't remember what year but I do remember it was Sunday March 11th. Must have been 08 or 09. Anyway, left Lafayette in the early afternoon to go back to BR, and got stuck on the bridge for 8+ hours. It was horrible. People were walking around, throwing footballs/frisbees, riding bikes... Some people even started busting out BBQ pits and grilling. Worst day of my life. Turns out a truck full of cucumbers flipped over on the whiskey bay bridge and they spilled out all over the place. They had to clean everything off before it was safe to drive.

And they most certainly did not try to get everyone off the bridge.... We sat there all fricking day.

It's mostly the truck drivers that cause these accidents. I commute from BR to Lake Charles at least 3 times a week for work, and I see it all the time. The signs that say "Trucks Right Lane Only" and "Truck Speed 55MPH" are a complete waste. Most of the trucks do not follow those restrictions. They are actually the ones going faster and driving wreckless while passing cars up. Most of the accidents (not just on the spillway bridge) on the interstate are caused by trucks.

I got stuck on the Huey P for about 3 hours one evening after work several years back. It sucked when the train would come across and you could feel the bridge swaying.

I was stuck on that causeway when a multiple car pileup occurred. I was there probably 4 hours and the actual wreck was cleaned up fairly fast but taking care of the injured parties and body removal was what took the longest. One of the medical helicopters landed on the causeway and picked a few people up.

I would use the down time to reflect upon my white privilege.

They need to clean house at dotd and Louisiana state police.
This state lacks true traffic control or people that know how to do it. LSP should be trained in this but accidents like this shows they are not properly trained or have the leadership to lead traffic detours.

US-190 at three mile bridge was bad also probably due to the red lights in Livonia which caused backups which help open the door to accidents. Big trucks have to stop and go at that light which you times it by the amount of rigs moving through and it doesn't take long to backup traffic.

Someone within dotd should have had a meeting with LSP, the local law enforcement depts, and local parish public works. Us-190 they should have been working the red lights to move traffic along quickly. Dotd should have had barricades up at certain intersections to help move I-10 traffic down 190.

I saw none of this when I went down us-190 Friday and Saturday. As tax payers we should demand people who jobs are to prepare for this lose their jobs for lack of planning.

Funny thing about those two lights at Livonia: about 3000' to the west 190 has a bridge over the railroad tracks. Let me repeat: a B-R-I-D-G-E. A pretty big one, for that matter.

To my simple mind it seems that it would be an easy project to drop some surface connections from LA-77 N and S of US 190 to loop under the bridge... then just shut down the darn lights when this type of thing happens.

As for LA-413 in Erwinville, folks N and S can just drive back to Port Allen and loop under 190 there. Port Barre? back to Opelousas you go.

There, problem fixed for cheap. Have a nice day.