LUFKIN, Texas (AP) — U.S. Highway 59, a major evacuation route from Houston, has been a problem for East Texas for decades. And as flooding rivaling that of Hurricane Harvey inundated the region in April, the highway closed in several places, cutting off a major evacuation route for countless people seeking shelter from the floods.
Plans to upgrade the highway, which stretches more than 600 miles through Texas from Laredo to Texarkana, to interstate standards have been on the books for decades. But the Texas Department of Transportation says it cannot guarantee that the billions of dollars being poured into the project will fix the flooding problem.
“U.S. 59 was one of the issues during (hurrican