Traffic's stacked on eastbound I-10 at Exit 773A after a motor vehicle incident around 8:18 AM Thursday morning. The crash near the McCarty entrance ramp has created a major backup during a critical window for commuters heading into downtown and east Houston.
This particular stretch of I-10 is no stranger to collisions. According to LocalTrafficAccidents.com data, Exit 773A and the surrounding corridor have logged 58 incidents over the past 30 days—a pace that puts this location in the extreme-incident category. Over the past 12 months, the area's seen 159 total incidents, with 94 of them major enough to impact traffic flow. The numbers tell you something about the geometry or traffic patterns here: Thursday mornings like this one are especially prone to trouble. In the past 90 days, this location's recorded 21 incidents on Thursdays alone, making it the highest-incident day of the week.
What makes this morning's crash particularly disruptive is timing. While this corridor's dominant incident pattern tends to happen during offpeak hours, about 37 percent of crashes here occur during the morning rush window. Thursday at 8:18 AM puts you squarely in that vulnerable window—just as commuters are flooding onto the freeway heading east. Weather's clear at the moment (78 degrees, sunny skies), so visibility isn't a factor in how quickly crews can assess and clear the roadway.
Eastbound I-10 traffic backing onto local streets near the incident site. If you're heading in that direction this morning, expect delays well beyond the immediate crash area. The backup's likely to push traffic onto surface streets—consider local feeder roads if you've got flexibility on timing. Exit 773A and the McCarty ramp are both bottleneck points during peak flow; a closure here radiates upstream quickly.
Crews are working to clear the incident. How long it takes depends on whether vehicles are still in travel lanes or if one of the lanes has been reopened. Early estimates suggest the backup could persist through mid-morning, though that's subject to change as responders assess damage and move vehicles to the shoulder. If you're heading eastbound on I-10 right now, give yourself extra time and monitor conditions on LTA or your navigation app—both will show real-time updates as the situation develops.
This corridor's track record suggests if you're planning to use I-10 eastbound later today, late afternoon might actually be the safer bet. The peak incident window here is 5 PM to 6 PM (10 incidents logged in that hour over the past 90 days), but that's still lower-risk than the current backup. Stay alert out there.
Update (4:20 PM CT): The major crash at EXIT 773A E IH 10 FWY @ MCCARTY ENTR RAMP, first reported at 8:18 AM, has cleared after more than 8 hours. All lanes have reopened and normal traffic flow has resumed in the area.
Sources: TxDOT Crash Records Information System and Local Traffic Accidents database. Counts through September 12, 2026.
In the month preceding this crash, 57 incidents had been documented here.
Crashes at this location have continued — 134 more have been recorded since. 62 of the crashes that followed were major.
Incidents have arrived less frequently at this location since.
Several of the crashes occurred back-to-back within days of each other.
Those numbers rank the location among the most incident-heavy stretches nearby.
Reflecting incident data through September 10, 2026.
EXIT 773A E IH 10 FWY @ MCCARTY ENTR RAMP
Harris County, Texas
This report was produced by LTA's editor-designed production system under the executive editorial direction of Dennis R. Mundy, Executive Editor. The system combines our proprietary data pipeline with AI-assisted drafting to deliver verified incident coverage to LTA's editorial standards.