Every northbound lane of Interstate 75 at mile marker 111 in Naples is now closed, a third escalation of a call the state first published as a disabled vehicle, with the full shutdown recorded between 4.49 and 4.59 and still standing at 5.05
Stock photo
The Florida Highway Patrol is now carrying every northbound lane of Interstate 75 at mile marker 111 in Naples as closed. The remarks field on the call reads that all lanes are closed, and it still read that at 5.05 this afternoon.
This is the same crash this desk wrote up at 4.38, not a new one. The call was received at 4.29, a unit was recorded dispatched at 4.30 and a unit reached the scene at 4.40. Those three stamps, along with the county, the location string and the published coordinates, are identical to the earlier item. What has changed is the lane status.
When that item went out, the state was carrying the left and center lanes as blocked, which is two of the three northbound lanes. The last check behind it, at 4.49, still read that way. By 4.59 the same row read that all lanes are closed. The full closure therefore entered the record somewhere between 4.49 and 4.59, and no tighter time than that is claimed here.
It is the fourth description the state has given this one call. It appeared first as a disabled vehicle in the roadway with the center lane blocked, the most routine entry the board carries. Within about seven minutes it had been retyped to a crash with a roadblock, then to a crash with injuries with the left and center lanes blocked. It has now gone to a full northbound closure. The type has not moved since 4.36 and remains a crash with injuries and a roadblock.
The practical effect is that there is no longer a lane to squeeze past in. Anyone who looked at this road at 4.40, saw two lanes down and decided to sit it out has a different problem now.
The board was genuinely populated on every check behind this item, carrying 101 and 102 incident rows statewide across 27 and 28 counties, so none of them is a failed read reporting a false all clear.
There is a second crash on the board at the same mile marker, and it should not be mistaken for this one. It is southbound, it was received at 4.49, twenty minutes after the northbound call, a unit reached it at 5.01, and its remarks read no roadblock. So the record supports two scenes at one marker with only the northbound side shut. Nothing here connects the two calls and no link between them should be assumed.
Beyond the board the public record is still empty. There is no cause, no vehicle count, no injury count, no names and no vehicle types. The word injuries is the state's own classification of the call and is the whole of what the record says about anyone being hurt. The Highway Patrol has issued no release, no outlet had the closure when this was written, and nobody has been accused of anything.
The weather picture has changed since the earlier item, in the direction of being less relevant rather than more. That item noted a Special Weather Statement covering a thunderstorm near Copeland, tens of miles southeast of this stretch of road. It expired at 4.45. There is now no National Weather Service product active over Collier County at all, and nothing here offers weather as a factor in this crash.
The same caution about the board applies as before. It publishes no clearance column, which was checked again on this run rather than carried over. A row coming off it is the state ending publication of the call, and it is not the state announcing that the lanes have reopened. When this board does record a clearance it says so in the remarks field, the way the southbound call above reads no roadblock. This northbound row has never carried that wording.
