BATON ROUGE, LA (LOCAL 33) (FOX 44) – If you have plans to go to New Orleans from Acadiana this weekend, you may want to get a head start or find an alternate route. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development wants to remind you part of I-10 East near Sorrento will be closed to finish repairs on an overpass that was damaged back in 2015.
“Instead of having a series of weekend closures, what we’ve done is work with a contractor to take the section that’s damaged off, and they have a repair yard set up right there by the interstate. They’re making repairs to that part of the on-ramp,” explained Rodney Mallett, communications director of LADOTD.
This weekend, construction workers are going to put that piece back on, and this means, part of I-10 East will shutdown.
“It’s going to start around 9:00 on Friday night, and it’s scheduled to last until 5:00 in the morning on Monday,” said Mallett. “If you’re going to New Orleans or you’re going that way, there are other options that you can take, such as I-12 to I-55, and it’s not that much long.”
Also, a detour route is in place. Drivers can get off at US 61, then head to LA 641 and get back on the interstate from there.
“Last time, when we took it off, we didn’t see a whole bunch of delays. The people who did opt to take I-10, there were some delays, of course, but it wasn’t tremendous. Any time you close an interstate down, you have the potential for tremendous delays,” concluded Mallett.
As for that overpass, DOTD said it should be back on for traffic in a month or so.
