“The tire’s just gone completely”: Traveling for the holidays during severe weather in the Brazos Valley

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – The severe weather throughout the Brazos Valley has created some difficulties for tons of travelers who are either coming back home or heading out. But that didn’t stop people from taking road trips or catching flights.

According to AAA, 107 million people are taking a road trip over this holiday period. But over the course of the day, we’ve seen tornado watches, hail, and thunderstorms. These are all things that aren’t ideal when taking a road trip.

The severe weather that we’ve experienced has caused delays for hundreds of travelers.

“We have calls for people who have spun out because they were on a wet roadway. And certainly, when you have wet weather and wet roadways, the chances of a crash increase. And we typically see a higher response to crashes as well,” Daniel Armbruster, AAA Texas spokesperson, explained.

Experts say if you plan on taking a road trip, make sure you’re driving a well-maintained vehicle, have healthy tires, and always have a backup plan.

However, one student who was trying to get to the other side of the world ran into a dilemma, and the severe weather didn’t make it any easier.

“It most definitely did disrupt our travels,” Tanay Patankar, Texas A&M masters student, said.

Patankar is a Texas A&M student studying for his master’s degree in computer science. All he wanted to do was go home to India for the new year.

“We were just waiting to take turn and it becomes green. We leave and we get a low-pressure warning. And we’re like what’s happening? We start driving and we feel we got a flat. We pull over to the side and the tire’s just gone completely,” Patankar explained.

Patankar planned on driving from College Station to Houston to catch a flight to India, but on the drive over, he got a flat tire.

“Sucks, right. We got it changed. Came back here to get a new car, then boom, tornado warning, thunderstorms,” says Patankar.

But Patankar wasn’t the only one dealing with travel delays.

AAA says over nine million Texans are traveling over the holidays, and 90 percent are going by car.

“Check ahead what conditions are like and, you know, plan an alternate route. That’s always a good idea. you may not have to use it, but if you get in a situation where you do need to find an alternate route, at least you’ve already got that planned out,” Armbruster explained.

For travelers like Patankar, weather conditions made things harder, but he stayed optimistic.

“If I wasn’t really doing anything. I would be, you know, relatively. I would enjoy the rain, maybe. But just because of the number of things happening at the worst possible time,” Patankar said.

AAA says that if you plan to take a road trip, you should make sure you have alternate routes and a game plan.

Copyright 2024 KBTX. All rights reserved.