PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — R.I. Department of Transportation officials say a human error caused the agency to post on social media that there were “snow conditions” on I-195 Thursday night.
There were rainy conditions at the time, but the outside temperature was about 63 degrees.
The agency made the post on X, formerly known as Twitter, shortly before 10 p.m. They said there were snow conditions on I-195 eastbound, and the left lane was blocked next exit 1D in East Providence.
The agency’s transportation management center is staffed 24 hours a day with operators monitoring traffic conditions, according to spokesperson Charles St. Martin.
Those operators use a computer program to generate an incident alert that’s then posted on social media.
“The system uses a series of drop-down choices for incident type, such as disabled vehicle or accident. Snow is one of those choices,” St. Martin explained. “In this instance, the operator mistakenly selected snow instead of vehicle accident, which is the incident he was attempting to announce.”