JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A mother wrote on NAS Jacksonville’s air show Facebook page that she’d been in traffic for two and half hours, while others said traffic was so bad they just turned around and didn’t even attend the event
Tyler Hyatt who works nearby saw first hand all the issues.
“People that came in were telling us that it was taking an hour and a half to two hours just to sit through traffic," said Hyatt.
Hyatt says traffic wasn’t the only thing people faced.
“Unfortunately they were also dealing with people traveling on the wrong side of the road to get around the traffic... I know you don’t want to wait in traffic, but that’s not safe," said Hyatt.
NAS Jacksonville public affairs officer, Kaylee LaRocque, says they had about 200,000 visitors Saturday and their parking areas were at full capacity early afternoon.
She says some people had to be turned away at that point for both safety and security concerns.
For Hyatt, he hopes the base learns from this past weekend's issues, and has a better plan in the future.
“Hopefully in the future when we do this again it could flow a little smoother and people don’t feel the need to put other people’s lives in danger to get where they are going," said Hyatt.
During the airshow, LaRocque says they were keeping an eye on social media posts and made several changes that were applied for Sunday’s show.
These included opening the parking area at 8 a.m. and installing more portlets in the parking area.