PORT HURON, Mich. (WXYZ) — Drivers going to Canada at the Blue Water Bridge are experiencing delays of over two hours due to a system outage at Canadian Customs, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation.
Watch Tiarra Braddock's video report below:
The outage has since been resolved; below is a statement from the Canada Border Services Agency:
"Although the outage has been resolved, commercial drivers continue to experience delays as we resume normal processing and continue to clear a backlog of requests that were received during the outage. Primary inspection lanes are staffed with officers to process traffic and shipments. We are actively collaborating with our partners to ensure traffic management.
Systems are being monitored for stability while traffic and shipping return to normal.
We thank commercial drivers for their cooperation and apologize for any inconvenience."
“People are stuck on the road. They want to get back to their families," said commercial truck driver Muhammad Khan. "They want to deliver these goods that are just sitting in this temperature."
Khan was coming all the way from Texas when he got stuck in the traffic on I-94 near the bridge.
“I’m sitting on I-94 and there has been no movement whatsoever and my engine is actually shut off right now. I can open my door. I can show you outside and there’s a big long lineup right here," Khan said.
“I think we all need to remember that we have human beings sitting in those trucks for hours... and that matter needs to be addressed. This needs to be fixed from both an economic side and from a human side," said Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
See video of the traffic backup from an anonymous WXYZ viewer
Chopper 7 footage of the traffic backup
MDOT said that around noon, wait times heading eastbound into Canada were over 120 minutes for both cars and commercial vehicles. Wait times westbound heading into the U.S. were at 45-60 minutes for cars and 30-45 minutes for commercial vehicles.
