Wells: Oversize loads create issues all around

WELLS – Oversize loads. Narrow roads. Sharp curves.

All ingredients for ongoing issues in Wells as 18-wheelers adhere to a state-generated map that results in accidents as oversize loads get rerouted through the city’s residential areas, often hindering road availability as well as that of emergency responders working those scenes.

“We’d like for them to pick a better route, especially than through a small town like ours,” said Robert Kalka, a city council member who also serves with the local volunteer fire department. “We don’t have the resources like Lufkin, Nacogdoches, like Houston. On one of the last (incidents), we had to call a hazmat crew out of Lufkin because of a small diesel spill.”

According to local police and trucking company sources, drivers utilize a customized route with turn-by-turn directions generated through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles’ TxPROS system (Texas Permitting & Routing Optimization System).

For years, these directions have routed 18-wheel operators and their oversize loads through the short, residential streets of Wells, which is located on U.S. Highway 69 South in southern Cherokee County.

They maneuver their way along the suggested route to pick up the first of two farm-to-market roads that eventually lead them to a U.S. highway, then I-45, as they make their way to Houston. 

According to one driver whose company regularly makes the run from Claremore, Oklahoma, any attempts to update information about issues and concerns over the Wells route just falls on deaf ears.

“The sad part is that we call them all the time to tell them about this, and they still send us this way,” said guide truck driver James Galloway, who was waiting for a wrecker to upright the 18-wheeler whose cargo was thrown off-balance as it attempted to navigate a curve along FM 1247.

Pointing down the road, he indicated a previous incident in which a truck tore up a concrete culvert as it tried to move through the area after clearing a sharp road curve moments before.

“The driver ripped the air locks off the trailer and blew out the air tank – all this just to make the corner,” he said. “And no matter how many times we tell the drivers, they tell us, ‘No, we have to do it that way – it’s the route they give us.’”

Galloway sighed. “It’s been a hell of a ride,” he said.

Spending several hours in Wells while waiting to get mobile again, the unexpected delay added time to the team’s trip, throwing off their overall schedule.

But they are not the only one affected by these accidents: For the city, issues can be translated into terms of hours lost in the form of tied-up manpower, loss of use of the roads while the accident site is being cleared, and cost of clean-up and repair.

“If you have 1-2 of these a week, it pulls people away people from what they should be doing,” said Wells Police Chief Harold Rapsilver. “Once they come in, they get hung up and the phone’s ringing. We’re small, and whoever’s working (that scene) is there until they get it fixed.”
That creates a problem, because when other calls come in, “whether it’s a theft, a burglary or a wreck, or something else, then you’re tied up because the whole roadway is blocked,” the chief said. “It’s a major pain for however long it takes to get it cleared.”

Like Galloway, Rapsilver said trying to get the state to update routing information for Wells has been difficult.

“It’s kind of like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. People will call them to get their permit, and they give them to a particular department that prints it out for them, but they have never been here,” he said. “Does anybody (that generates the routes) ever drive these things to see where those drivers are going?”

City officials say the solution is obvious: Create a more sensible route that avoids using local residential streets so that drivers can safely travel, resulting in less accidents like these. 

“Get them off (FM) 1247, because there is no longer a need to route everything (through residential areas),” said police officer Steve Cooper, who handled the wreck that involved Galloway’s driving team. 

“There was a routing issue when we had all the construction going here, and I understood then because of the narrow (highway) lanes and some of the oversized loads – they were trying to get them away from all that as much as possible,” he said. “But we’ve long since have been done with that project, you think TxDOT would know to update that route.”

In March 2017, TxDOT launched a construction project to widen U.S. 69 in Wells from a two-lane to a four-lane thoroughfare. This would alleviate traffic flowing from the south during times of emergency. The project was completed in August 2020.