The exit ramp where the terminal access road at Southwest Florida International Airport meets Interstate 75 southbound is recorded open again, about forty minutes after a crash with injuries put a roadblock on it.
The Florida Highway Patrol is recording the exit ramp open again where the terminal access road at Southwest Florida International Airport meets Interstate 75 southbound, after a crash with injuries in Lee County had it marked as blocked.
The incident went onto the state dispatch board at 4.17 p.m. as a crash with injuries and a roadblock, with a second timestamp at 4.22 p.m. When this desk captured the row at 4.24 p.m. its remarks field read roadway clear. A board update timestamped 4.32 p.m. changed that to a roadblock on the exit ramp, and the live board still read that way at 4.39 p.m. Two direct reads at 4.56 p.m. read roadway open.
The third timestamp did not advance on that last change, so the board puts no time on the reopening and none is stated here. This desk polls the same board every five minutes and first saw the change at 4.49 p.m., which places it between 4.39 p.m. and 4.49 p.m.
This item was first published while the ramp was recorded as blocked and told drivers heading for a flight to allow extra time and approach the terminal another way. That advice no longer applies to the ramp, and this update says so plainly rather than replacing the earlier reading without a word. Storm conditions on those roads are a separate matter and are dealt with below.
That is close to the whole of what has been established.
No agency has released the name of anyone involved, how many people were involved, how many were hurt, what vehicles were in the crash, which direction they were travelling, or what caused it. The Highway Patrol has published no statement and neither has the Lee County Sheriff's Office. The Lee County Port Authority, which operates the airport, has published no notice. Nobody has been accused of anything, and nothing here should be read as suggesting a cause or assigning responsibility to any person.
This is the ramp connection, not the terminal frontage and not the interstate mainline, which is not recorded as blocked. The board's own location string is cut off at the exit number, so no exit is named here.
No claim is made about flights. The state of an exit ramp is a road condition, and nothing established here, blocked or open, affects any departure, arrival or terminal operation.
Lee County has been under a special weather statement since 4.23 p.m., extended by a second statement at 4.37 p.m., both running to 5 p.m. with radar indicated gusts of 40 to 50 mph and torrential rain, and both naming Fort Myers. The dispatch board states no cause for this crash and no agency has stated one, so the storm and the crash are reported here as two separate facts about the same hour.
One other Lee record sat on the same board and is unrelated: a vehicle fire on Interstate 75 southbound at mile marker 141 in Fort Myers, received at 4.27 p.m. and marked no roadblock. Mile markers rise northward, so it sits well north of the airport interchange on the same southbound carriageway.
The board covers state roads only, meaning the interstate, US 41 and the state routes. It does not carry Lee County or City of Fort Myers streets, so it says nothing about the surface roads feeding the airport, which should be treated as unreported rather than clear.
A fuller account, if one comes, will come from the Highway Patrol.
