DriveTexas website viewed by 5 million during hurricane

During Hurricane Harvey, at least 500 state roads and highways were impassable due to flooding.

DriveTexas.org became a valuable resource for real-time traffic updates.

The site recorded more than 5 million website visits since the hurricane made landfall.

"So many people were using it to navigate,” said Bob Colwell of the Texas Department of Transportation.

TxDOT users input the road closures and conditions from all across the state.

"There are about fifteen hundred users in the system and they consist of the maintenance people that are actually out in the trucks on the roads either performing or supervising the work,” said Bryan Watson of the Texas Department of Transportation.

During Harvey, crews were out in the field updating the website in real time with their cell phones.

"Now they are able to go into a mobile friendly website and actually enter everything when they are on site," said Watson.

But road conditions are not just updated during storms or emergency situations.

"They can see if it's closed if it's flooding if it's due to an accident and they can even dig deeper and it gives more detailed information," said Colwell.

Crews continuously checked on closed roads and once conditions improved updated the site.