By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — State highway officials Wednesday closed the westbound lanes of Interstate 40 near Biscoe in Prairie County due to flooding, the first time an interstate route through Arkansas has been closed because of high water.

Officials expected to close the eastbound lanes later in the day, creating massive traffic jams and long detours for motorists traveling in both directions of one of the busiest east-west interstate routes in the nation.

“I will submit to you we’re going to have unhappy people this week, but we cannot do anything about it, Glenn Bolick, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said at a news conference at highway department headquarters.

“I mean it’s just a freak of nature, all the rain,” he said.

Bolick said I-40 could be closed for at least two days until flood waters recede.

“It’s going to be a real inconvenience … this is one of the most traveled truck routes in the country,” he said, noting that about 31,000 vehicles, 60 percent of them big rigs, travel daily on that stretch of the interstate.

The flooding is at the 202 mile marker west of Biscoe. Westbound traffic is being diverted at Brinkley onto U.S. 49 north to Fair Oaks, from there onto U.S. 64 to Bald Knob, then south on U.S. 67/167 south to Little Rock. A section of U.S. 67/167 between Sherwood and Jacksonville just reopened to traffic Wednesday after being closed due to flooding.

I-40’s eastbound lanes were still open by 6 p.m., but highway officials already were rerouting traffic onto U.S. 63 at Hazen, south to Stuttgart, then onto U.S. 165 to Dewitt, to Arkansas 1 to Marvell, where motorists have a choice of taking U.S. 49 north to Brinkley, Arkansas 1 to Forrest City or U.S. 49 east to Helena-West Helena.

Bolick said state highway officials have contacted counterparts in Tennessee and Oklahoma and urged

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