Worst Thanksgiving travel delays likely on highways

Updated 2h 1m ago
By Tom Spalding and Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

INDIANAPOLIS — Brittany Wiley, an experienced business traveler, wasn't taking any chances Wednesday, one of the busiest travel days of the year. She arrived at Indianapolis International Airport at 6:30 a.m., hours before her flight home to Little Rock.

To her surprise, Wiley, 28, found a quiet airport and settled in for a leisurely breakfast of toast at an airport café.

The Indianapolis airport was ready for 26,000 fliers to pass through Wednesday. Nationwide, more than 1.62 million people will fly over the Thanksgiving holiday, up 3.5% from last year, the American Automobile Association says.

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Even as the nation focuses on airports and the federal government's new security procedures, the worst delays are likely to be on highways as 39.7 million travelers take to the roads. A survey by AAA of 50,000 households predicts a 12% increase in Thanksgiving traffic over last year.

"It's the highest percentage of people going by car that we've seen in the 20 years we've been doing the survey," says John Townsend, a spokesman for AAA's Mid-Atlantic region. "A lot of people are going over the river and through the woods to grandfather's house. I think that we are really focused on seeing our family and friends this holiday."

That doesn't mean it'll be easy getting there.

The roads will be most congested from noon to 8 p.m. today, Townsend says.

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Traffic on I-95 southbound came to a standstill at noon Wednesday when a tractor trailer hauling gravel overturned in Wilmington, Del. State officials closed the highway from the Pennsylvania state line to Wilmington for two and a half hours while workers righted the truck and scooped up the gravel, Delaware State Police spokesman Sgt. Paul Shavack said.

"We had to shut down 95 completely through the city of Wilmington," Shavack said. "This was not the day for that at all. It was a very slow process."

Traffic had already backed up at the East Coast's perennial chokepoint: the Interstate 95 toll plaza in Newark, Del., where construction is adding to the bottleneck. I-95 runs from Maine to Florida and connects such cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.

AAA predicts a 20-mile backup at the toll plaza on both sides, Townsend says. The backup began Tuesday and is expected to last through Monday when people return, he says.

"Motorists should brace themselves," Townsend says. "I-95 is one of the busiest travel corridors in the country."

Sharon Hagy left Doylestown, Pa., early Wednesday to beat traffic on the drive to Williamsburg, Va., where her family had rented a condo. Hagy, 48, prefers driving over flying.

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"Especially today, I'd rather be in control a little bit more of my comings and goings," Hagy says.

In the West, a powerful snowstorm hit the Rockies, creating white-out conditions and snarling traffic early Wednesday in Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.

The storm closed highways in Idaho and Wyoming. In Utah, highway officials warned travelers to leave early Wednesday for their holiday destinations or face being snowed in on Thanksgiving as a blizzard approached. In northern Arizona, weather experts predicted strong wind gusts and blowing snow as drivers got on the road.

In South Dakota, where a thin layer of ice coated highways, state emergency management officials warned motorists to check road conditions often. Travelers encountered blowing and drifting snow, driven by wind gusts up to 35 mph., the Department of Public Safety said in an advisory.

The storm is likely to force some flight delays in Chicago and the New York area as it moves east.

At airports across the country, promised protests against full-body scanners and pat-downs are failing to materialize.

The Transportation Security Administration said there have been only a handful of passengers who opted out of going through the scanners, which can peer through clothing to find weapons.

Loose-knit groups on the Internet, which say the scanners are a violation of privacy, urged passengers to boycott the scanners. That would trigger the controversial pat-downs, which have become more rigorous at all airports since Nov. 1 and could cause delays.

Wiley doesn't see "any big deal" with the security measures. "I feel safe," she said.

Spalding reports for The Indianapolis Star. Contributing: Alan Levin; Greg Latshaw of The Daily Times, Salisbury, Md.; Jeff Martin of The Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D.; the Associated Press

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