ATLANTA - On the busiest travel day of the year, Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport was shuffling people through with few problems, but travelers on Georgia's highways didn't have such luck. <br>
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Highways leaving Atlanta started clogging before noon, and a tractor-trailer accident on Interstate 95 near Brunswick left traffic backed up for ten miles Wednesday morning. <br>
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That accident caused only minor injuries, but it created a major headache for travelers headed to Florida for the holiday. Two of three lanes were blocked, and it took an hour to remove the three tractor-trailers from the road. <br>
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In Atlanta, state traffic engineers said highway traffic was bad by lunchtime. Looking up at the sprawling screen where more than 260 cameras feed traffic information, engineer Mark Demidovich pointed out a stall on Interstate 75-85. <br>
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He joked, ``That just effectively destroyed the Downtown Connector.'' He said traffic on Atlanta's main thoroughfare was heavy as any Friday rush hour. <br>
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State traffic planners predicted the roads would be dicey as ever this year because air travel is down, not having fully recovered from September eleventh. Hartsfield spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said more people are booking flights this Thanksgiving compared to last year, but overall air travel is still down about six percent since the terrorist attacks. <br>
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Airport officials expected about 234,000 people would travel through Hartsfield Wednesday, a lighter travel day than the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That day, more than 254,000 passengers are expected, making it the busiest travel day of the year at Hartsfield. <br>
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The state patrol predicted 21 deaths during the holiday period from today at 6 p.m. through midnight Sunday. Last year, there were 17 fatalities during the Thanksgiving holiday.
