What seemed to be a normal road during the day would turn into a dangerous driving zone every night. The Callicoatte onramp exit in Calallen was not being lit enough for drivers. The broken lamp raised some concerns.
"It’s a very dangerous area. With high speed trucks, motorcycles, cars, there needs to be some illumination at least," Calallen man Pablo Perez said.
Perez told us he called the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) multiple times over the past five years but got no response. He mentioned that someone went out to fix the four light poles, but the first one, closest to the exit, did not budge and was left that way. Perez tried calling different 3-1-1 agencies in Corpus Christi, but still nothing.
"That's where most of the cars are getting abandoned and not working. It's very hard to imagine that these city leaders and the people responsible for this are not looking at this exit. It is very dangerous because the people coming in are at high speeds, and if they can't see a vehicle at night, they can crash right into it," Perez said.
Perez reached out to us Wednesday about the broken lamp post in the area. We contacted TXDOT after speaking with Perez and that lamp is now fixed.
"We sent two crews out to look at the area. We identified that there was a break in the circuit that was feeding that one lightbulb on the onramp and so that was replaced earlier today," Deputy District Engineer for the Corpus Christi TXDOT District Michael Walsh said.
Walsh told us that crews were in the area on January 3 to make repairs. Walsh said the reason the concern was not addressed sooner could have been because the concern was lost within the city's communication. When calling 3-1-1, the information the city receives might not always make it back to TXDOT.
"We have a current project that's making illumination repairs along I-37. We have another project to make additional repairs. We have a million dollar project coming up to replace wiring along I-37. We're constantly doing upgrades to the lighting," Walsh said.
He tells us that TXDOT really does inspections with night drives. If they come across problems, they log it and send it into their repair crews. They also rely on residents to call and notify them if lights are out so they can fix it as soon as possible.
If concerns about state roads come up, residents can call 361-808-2300. There's also local numbers for each county if they would like a maintenance crew to inspect local issues.
