Cape Cod Emergency Traffic Plan

The Cape Cod Emergency Traffic Plan (CCETP) has been developed to facilitate egress of the high volume of traffic from Cape Cod in the event of a hurricane, particularly during the peak tourist season.  Although developed for a hurricane scenario, this ‘All Hazards’ Plan has been designed to be utilized in a number of emergency situations.  This is not an Evacuation Plan.  The term ‘evacuation’ applies to the movement of a population from low-lying, flood-prone areas to higher, safer ground. Most residents would be safe in their homes or at local designated mass care shelters. Residents should learn from their local Emergency Management Director the particular hurricane risks for their area, finding out if their property is subject to storm surge or inland flooding. There probably would be no reason to evacuate the entire Cape in the event of a hurricane. During the summer months, however, it is anticipated that most tourists would attempt to leave the Cape & Islands if a serious hurricane is predicted.

This plan was initiated following Hurricane Edouard, which approached Cape Cod on Labor Day 1996. Within hours of the Governor’s Declaration of a State of Emergency, a 6-8 hour backup, stretching an estimated 40 miles occurred from the Sagamore Bridge to the Orleans Rotary along Route 6, due in large part to the challenges presented by the highway’s rotaries and on-ramps.  The goal of the Plan is to eliminate the causes of congestion in the areas of the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges, as well as on Routes 6 and 28, the main arteries leading to them.  Free flowing off-Cape traffic is the primary concern of the Plan.

The Plan, which is revisited and exercised annually, has been reduced to Two Phases.  In simple terms, once initiated, Phase I activates 90% of the plan. This eliminates off-Cape access to Routes 6 and 28 at the base of both Bridges, prohibits local traffic access to these main arteries through the rotaries and prohibits all cross-rotary traffic. These prohibited merges are offset by providing detours around the congestion areas to points on Route 6 and Route 28 where entering/merging will not affect the primary traffic flow. These new traffic patterns will be accomplished by traffic coordination of Massachusetts State Police at crucial travel points, a series of prepositioned informational signs set up by MassDOT and continual Media announcements. The MassDOT message boards would announce a detour for traffic bound for the Bourne Bridge.  This detour would send motorists through the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR) to Route 28 to exit the Cape at the Bourne Bridge. 

Phase II is activated when the Army Corps of Engineers, MassDOT, MA State Police and MEMA determine that winds have reached or are about to reach dangerous levels, precipitating the closure of all traffic on the Bridges. Past versions of the CCETP tied closure of the bridges to specific wind-speed thresholds.  In the most recent Plan, the decision will depend on a variety of additional factors such as forecast, time of day, traffic and road conditions.  All motorists on the road will then have the option of seeking their own shelter, particularly in large local public mass care shelters or, as a last resort, being sheltered at retrofitted barracks on the MMR until the storm passes.

The Cape Cod Emergency Traffic Plan has been developed by the cooperative efforts of federal, state and local partners.  Participants in this process have included representatives of MEMA, MA State Police, MA National Guard, MassDOT, American Red Cross, Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard, MA Department of Public Health, Cape Cod Medical Reserve Corps,  State of Massachusetts Animal Emergency Response Team (SMART), National Weather Service, Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department, WQRC-Radio and numerous Public Safety Personnel from the potentially impacted communities from Bourne to Provincetown and the Islands.

Full plan: Cape Cod Emergency Traffic Plan  file size 1MB

Hear MEMA's interview with WQRC 99.9 FM about the Cape Cod Emergency Traffic Plan: Cape Cod Traffic Plan Discussion with WQRC August 2012 AUDIO  file size 8MB