Trip Planning

Last saturday we received just under 10 inches of rain in Des Moines within a couple hours and caused a ton of flooding, and southwest Minnesota has numerous US and state highways shut down due to flooding. Looking at your atlas won't tell you a particular road is temporarily shutdown, and if you're required to detour it will add time which could be bad if you're racing against your 11/14. Would something like that just be more of an inconvenience as it seems most of you trip plan for 50 mph, or do you have other means of checking any potential closures before starting your day to know what you could be dealing with?

Honestly I've found the Google maps app with it's traffic setting is pretty accurate when showing delays and closures. I use it every time I'm heading south of Boston to see of going threw the city will be ok or if I need to go around. Most often than not it works well.

You can also look at the State's DOT web site or call them.

State DOT website, Storm Radar (National Weather Service) app on Android, and Waze traffic app on Android. These are what I use now as a newbie.

When winter comes back around, in most large cities the local TV news channels will often have a running list of school closures for snow or weather, etc. The running lists often include suburbs and other smaller cities surrounding the large city. So, if you scroll through a list for about 5 seconds, you may or may not see the name of a city or town you are delivering to or through. But if you do, it may merit further investigation.

In addition to the phone apps and/or websites that each state has (as others have mentioned), there is also the 511 phone service. Calling that connects you to the DOT info for the state you're in, and in many cases can also connect you to other states, at least to adjoining states.

Last saturday we received just under 10 inches of rain in Des Moines within a couple hours and caused a ton of flooding, and southwest Minnesota has numerous US and state highways shut down due to flooding. Looking at your atlas won't tell you a particular road is temporarily shutdown, and if you're required to detour it will add time which could be bad if you're racing against your 11/14. Would something like that just be more of an inconvenience as it seems most of you trip plan for 50 mph, or do you have other means of checking any potential closures before starting your day to know what you could be dealing with?