A mass evacuation exercise was conducted Wednesday near the Pharr interchange.

The Texas Department of Transportation’s Pharr District and its emergency management partners were simulating the operational plan for contraflow, which TxDOT says is when all lanes of interstate traffic will move in the same direction as part of an evacuation.

Contraflow would only be utilized following a mandatory evacuation order by elected officials, a news release stated.

“This would be a last resort measure during in an extreme circumstance,” TxDOT spokesman Ray Pedraza said. “Whether it be a catastrophic hurricane or a manmade natural disaster where we need to get a mass amount of people out of the region."

For the Pharr district, the primary routes for contraflow are I-2 westbound and I-69C northbound. In an actual event, 72 entrance ramps along southbound I-69C and eastbound I-2 would close, the news release added.