|
|
Friday, July 30, 2010 |
Serving Seguin and Guadalupe County since 1888
|
|
|
Marketplace
Sections
Services
Service Center
|
|
 |
|
Firefighters push for extended barriers
Published December 11, 2009
The county’s volunteer firefighters have called on state officials to extend a system of wire barriers in the Interstate 10 median through Guadalupe County in a move they say might have prevented at least five recent fatalities.
Fire chiefs in Marion, McQueeney and New Berlin have recently expressed concerns about head-on collisions that sometimes occur on Interstate 10 when vehicles cross the center divider.
On Nov. 23, the professional association of the county’s volunteers, the Guadalupe County Fire Fighters Association, voted unanimously to send a letter to the Texas Department of Transportation calling for the completion of the project.
The Texas Department of Transportation has just received $425,810 to construct a 6-1/2 mile stretch of the cable barriers from Schwab Road to the Bexar County line at Cibolo Creek.
While fire officials say the news is welcome, they’d like to see the project begin immediately and not wait until next year, and one said he’d like to see them installed through the county in the Interstate 10 median from Caldwell to Bexar counties.
“There are approximately 11 miles of Interstate 10 between State Highway 46 and the Bexar County line that do not have the cable barriers in place and over 15 miles of Interstate 10 between State Highway 123 Bypass and the Caldwell County line that do not have them,” said McQueeney Volunteer Fire Department Chief Tim Bogisch.
That makes Guadalupe County one of the most dangerous stretches of Interstate 10 between Houston and San Antonio, Bogisch believes.
The chief was amplifying the letter by the volunteer association, which specifically cited an area within the scope of the project TxDOT spokeswoman Laura Lopez said would begin construction in 2010.
“Numerous incidents have occurred along the western portion of Interstate 10 between FM 465 and the Cibolo Creek in which multiple fatalities and serious injury vehicle accidents have occurred,” stated the letter, signed by association president Deby Ormond and by fire chiefs Bogisch and Kurt Strey of New Berlin.
The letter continues to seek a meeting on the issue with TxDOT and calls for action “as soon as possible.”
Over the past several months, five people have died in such accidents, firefighters say — two of them over the week leading up to the recent Thanksgiving holiday.
Strey said the Texas Department of Transportation has installed the cables in Bexar County and in parts of Guadalupe County, but now needs to finish the job — and sooner rather than later.
“TxDOT began installing the cables and then stopped short of covering all of Guadalupe County’s portion of Interstate 10, and we’re asking — demanding — that they complete it,” Strey said. “We’ve seen proof time and again that these cables do work to prevent vehicles even as large as 18-wheelers from crossing into oncoming lanes of traffic.”
In addition to reducing the number of head-on collisions, Strey said the barriers would have the added benefit of protecting first responders at accident scenes from potential injury from oncoming traffic.
“We train on how to park our vehicles at roadway incidents to protect us, and the cable would be another safety measure,” Strey said. “With the system in place, we possibly could avoid yet another tragedy on top of the one that we have responded to because there’s a safety net in place to keep another vehicle from striking us as we work to save lives.”
When paramedics are needed on the stretch of Interstate 10 in Guadalupe County, they come from the Seguin Fire Department or from Schertz EMS, which provides EMS service in areas of the county not served by Seguin.
Schertz EMS Director Dudley Wait said completing the system in this county should be accomplished at the earliest opportunity, considering the traffic on Interstate 10 and some of the traffic accidents that have occurred there.
The barriers have been installed on Loop 1604 and on Interstate 10 in Bexar County out to the Cibolo Creek, Wait said, and have had a positive effect.
“I think it’s long overdue,” Wait said. “Interstate 10 is heavily traveled, especially during commute times, and these accidents are always catastrophic.”
Lopez said the work is driven by available funding, and the funding for installing the cables in the first stretch of Interstate 10 on the county’s west end was just released last month.
The funds were part of $2 billion in Proposition 12 bond proceeds to be spent on non-toll highway projects to increase mobility, rehabilitate infrastructure or improve safety.
Funds have not yet been identified for further barrier projects in Guadalupe County, Lopez said.
“We’ve received bond money that will go toward completing the barrier project from Schwab Road, and hopefully that will be next year,” Lopez said.
For Bogisch and the other fire chiefs, that will not be soon enough and will not be enough, with plenty of Interstate east of Schwab Road that could use similar treatment.
Bogisch noted that Guadalupe County got behind the efforts of the family of Samantha Ibarra in its effort to get safety enhancements along State Highway 123 in the wake of a Jan. 9 accident in which Ibarra was killed.
“The Texas Department of Transportation is making some much-needed safety improvements on State Highway 123 north and south of Seguin primarily because one family would not let the death of their loved one in a motor vehicle crash be in vain,” Bogisch said. “Since none of the families of the victims along Interstate 10 are advocating for safety improvements along the interstate, the emergency responders who protect it are speaking out for them and for the thousands of people who travel it every day.”
Share |
Save |
Mail |
Print |
Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|