Motorists thanked following A5 fire chaos
Saturday 12th June 2010, 11:00AM BST.
Police today thanked motorists for their “understanding and patience” after a main road on the outskirts of Shrewsbury was closed for more than nine hours.
The A5 between the Preston and Emstrey Islands was closed just after 5am yesterday after a lorry carrying hay bales caught fire on the Emstrey Island.
The road fully reopened at about 3.30pm after the closure caused a day of disruption which saw traffic jams on the A5 and other roads as motorists looked for alternative routes past the scene.
Shrewsbury Crown Court was also affected with a number of cases being unable to proceed because people were caught in the snarl-ups.
The fierce blaze took firefighters hours to extinguish, with bales moved to a nearby field as they smouldered.
Officers at the scene had put in a contra-flow around Emstrey Island, allowing the westbound A5 dual carriageway to be reopened to traffic by about 2.30pm.
Sergeant Darren Heyes from Shrewsbury Police Station said the tailbacks had taken some time to clear but that the move had eased much of the congestion on other roads caused by diversions and closures.
Mr Heyes said: “We appreciate that this caused long delays for a huge number of people and would like to thank people for their understanding and patience.”
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No problem.
I was nearly 2 hours late for work & in the grand scheme of things it’s not really a problem.
It was just one of those things that happen.
Others on the site were more critical & volunteered to profer their expert analysis of the whole event.
My question to those armchair generals is:
How better would you have handled it???????.
Looking at the whole scenario I can’t see how it would have been any better dealt with.
Hey we all got to where we needed to be alive & well, if a little later than planned.
Can you ask for any thing more???.
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