Today, part of Interstate 264 will be shut down during the middle of the day. 

Officials say starting at 11 a.m., between First Colonial Road and Birdneck Road, I-264 east and west will close as Dominion Virginia Power replaces power lines over the road.

The westbound side of that stretch will be closed first, while the eastbound side remains open. Then, the eastbound side will close while westbound remains open.

Dominion Virginia Power made this decision to avoid traffic problems, officials tell NewsChannel 3. 

Each side’s closure should only take about 10 minutes.

“Traffic is going to get a little hectic,” said Julian Etheridge of Virginia Beach.

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So why in the middle of the day? The utility company needs daylight to do the work.

“All the people coming from that way, coming this way and normal people going this way, it’s going to get congested,” said Etheridge.

Drivers will have to get off of I-264 and head south on First Colonial Road.
And then they will have to take a quick left onto Virginia Beach Boulevard.

“It’s still the interstate, it’s still at the same time everybody takes lunch, you know, a lot of people are going to have to resort to not taking lunch or bringing lunch to work,” said Hernan Pena of Virginia Beach.

The detour then calls for drivers to take a near 1.4 mile stretch of the boulevard.

There’s roadwork going on, so not much of a shoulder for cars as they head east.

“Well, it’s going to cause a lot of confusion, possibly accidents,”  says Joe Graves of Virginia Beach.

There’s only one traffic light, and Beach traffic engineers have worked on manipulating the traffic lights so traffic eastbound can keep flowing.

But there’s no planned detour for drivers going west.

“It’s still going to have to deal with the traffic jam. It’s going to be a bottleneck, it’s going to be, it’s just not a good idea,” said Pena.

Watch NewsChannel 3 at Noon for updates.