I-10 potholes lead to backups and shaken MS Coast drivers. ‘The road just disappeared’

Drivers going east on Interstate 10 slogged through traffic on Tuesday after large potholes damaged cars and shook drivers on rainy morning commutes.

Delays were first reported before 9 a.m. Tuesday near the Vidalia Road bridge. MDOT said drivers would face “major delays” in eastbound lanes that could last through the afternoon.

Crews were racing to fix large holes that cracked open between Vidalia Road and Menge Avenue at Exit 24, the Mississippi Department of Transportation said. MDOT first said work would finish by noon but later extended it through 4 p.m.

Mississippi Highway Patrol Trooper Landon Orozco said drivers were hitting the potholes, which had apparently formed overnight. Potholes have cracked the interstate and led to closures near Menge Avenue several times in recent weeks because heavy trucks are putting too much weight on a drain in the right lane.

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Meghan Leigh Peterson said she was driving at 65 mph toward Gulfport for work Tuesday morning when her car slammed over the hole just before the Vidalia Road bridge. She said she heard a boom and her dashboard lit red with a collision warning. Her car jolted toward a roadside barricade and her head hit the sunroof. Pens, a phone and a cup in her console scattered over the drivers seat.

“The road just disappeared,” she said.

Several drivers across the overpass had pulled to the side with blown tires, Peterson said. Her car has two bent rims.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” she said. “It’s very dangerous.”

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MDOT and the Highway Patrol could not provide images or immediately estimate the size of the hole.

MDOT has said it placed signs on I-10 that warn trucks to use the left lane during construction. The agency has shifted traffic onto the shoulder while crews work in the median to add one lane in each direction of I-10.

Anna Ehrgott, a public information officer for MDOT, said earlier this month that the shoulder is safe for regular traffic. But “heavy truck traffic really needs to stay in the left lane,” she said.

MDOT alerted drivers of wet roads and slow traffic in the area on Tuesday. “Use caution,” an MDOT alert said, “and be prepared to stop.”

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Traffic continued through midday and stretched from Diamondhead to Vidalia Road at 3 p.m., an MDOT map showed.

Drivers going east through Jackson County Tuesday morning also faced short delays after two cars collided and blocked the right lane near Exit 68 for Moss Point. MDOT said at 9:15 a.m. that the closure, originally reported at 8:15 a.m., was clear. No injuries were reported.

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