Julie Kerchner looked at the snow-covered highway in front of her and felt thankful for the all-wheel drive SUV she had recently purchased.

But her white, 2018 Hyundai Tucson didn’t get her home any easier on Nov. 15, when 7 inches of snow blanketed southcentral Pennsylvania. Interstate 83 was jammed with cars lined up for miles.

As fall leaves held onto snowy trees lining the highway, Kerchner saw accidents in front of her and a long queue of cars behind her.

The 28-year-old York resident was ultimately stuck on the closed interstate for more than 8 hours.

More:Storm outpaced plows as commuters flooded highways, leading to utter standstill on I-83

I-83 hasn't really changed since it was built decades ago. It wasn't built to be an interstate, and it's not designed for the regular daily traffic on it now. The highway's flaws are amplified during minor and major weather events.

Could it handle something serious like the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown on March 28, 1979? If I-83 wasn't built to be an interstate, can it really be a main evacuation route?

The narrow, four-lane highway isn't big enough to handle daily traffic without lane closures, let alone a mass evacuation.

Short on and off ramps that make it especially difficult for the increased truck traffic getting on the highway.

No medians.

Narrow shoulders.

Minor snows, disabled vehicles, a cop pulling over a motorist and minor crashes can quickly turn the highway into a one-lane road or close it temporarily.

I-83 wasn't built to be an interstate. Was it built for an evacuation?

The highway that stretches from Baltimore to Harrisburg looks like a big, major interstate in Maryland, but in Pennsylvania it doesn't look much different than when the road was completed in 1971. There are shoulders of I-83 in Maryland that are about as wide as parts of the actual highway in Pennsylvania.

I-83 wasn't designed to be an interstate in Pennsylvania. It largely replaced the old Route 111, PennDOT officials said.

Yet, it's grown into one of the busiest roads in Pennsylvania and one of the main arteries into and out of the region, with about 3.4 million miles traveled each day. The bulk of those miles are traveled in York County, according to PennDOT.

More:Interstate 83 : What's being done to improve the highway in York County

A motorist needs to spend just one trip on I-83 to realize it wasn't designed for the traffic it carries. A disabled vehicle or minor crash, which occur almost daily, can close a lane or both lanes for hours. An inch or two of snow can also lead to road closures for hours.

Fort years after the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown, which is often regarded as the biggest disaster and evacuation in our region, I-83 remains ill-equipped to handle a mass evacuation. It's one of the main roadways for people in the evacuation zone, and snow or other conditions that lead to typical backups could turn the highway into a parking just when it's needed the most.

PennDOT officials said a mass evacuation on I-83 wouldn't be easy, but it's possible.

"It doesn't take much to get down to a single lane of traffic on that road," said Mike Keiser, district executive for PennDOT Engineering District 8, which covers an eight-county region in southcentral Pennsylvania.

For example, when compared to I-81, the on and off ramps on I-83 aren't nearly as long. In a mass evacuation, several on and off ramps would likely be closed along I-83 to keep traffic moving, Keiser said. Moreover, because 83 wasn't designed to be an interstate, there's no real median. There's barely a shoulder in some of the narrowest stretches.

Drivers can easily feel the difference on the road when driving from Pennsylvania into Maryland. The narrow, pot-hole ridden, four-lane highway in the commonwealth opens to a six-lane, smooth highway in Maryland.

PennDOT plans to eventually make I-83 a six-lane road in Pennsylvania. The work being done to exits and overpasses along the highway is being done as though I-83 has six lanes.

To fix everything on I-83 that needs to be fixed, it would cost about $2.5 billion, Keiser said. And those improvements are competing with projects in other PennDOT districts, vying for a share of the department's $2.2 billion budget.

The next major reconstruction of I-83 will begin in 2021 when a five-mile stretch around the North George Street interchange expands from four lanes to six.

PennDOT is also tracking access issues between exits 24 and 28, which aren't equipped for all the industrial growth that has occurred in the area.

"The older interchanges don’t function as well as they should with the traffic there," Keiser said.

In some ways, I-83 is less capable of handling a mass evacuation than it was 40 years ago. There is exponentially more truck traffic and the York County population has swelled from about 313,000 in 1979 to about 446,000 in 2017. Surrounding counties have seen about the same level of population growth, which could push a lot more traffic onto I-83 during an evacuation.

Despite these challenges, Keiser believes I-83 could handle a mass evacuation.

"We do have tools in place we didn't have years ago, and we can get information out much faster," he said.

Nuclear plant owners are required to conduct traffic studies every few years to estimate the amount of time it would take to evacuate the population within the Emergency Planning Zone, which is the area within a 10-mile radius of the facility. Those traffic studies consider variables such as bad weather or the summer travel season.

The latest look shows about 100,000 more people live in the 10-mile radius of TMI than the 135,000 who lived there in 1979. Trying to evacuate those additional residents would make local roadways look like a parking lot, officials said.

When asked if our major roadways are equipped to handle a mass evacuation, PEMA spokeswoman Ruth Miller said, "In the event of an evacuation, no matter what triggered it, traffic control and incident management would fall to law enforcement, just as it would on any other day without an evacuation.

"It’s important to note that motorists are free to travel to the destination of their choice using whatever route they wish, so long as they follow standard travel laws and the guidance of law enforcement personnel."

What is a successful mass evacuation?

Most mass evacuations in the U.S. are prompted by hurricanes.

If the people who need to get out are able to get out, that’s considered successful, according to Richard Olson, director of the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University. A successful mass evacuation can take about 20 to 30 hours, he said.

Kerchner was stuck on I-83 between Lewisberry and New Cumberland for 8 hours. She can’t imagine sitting on that highway for 20 to 30 hours.

She left work in Mechanicsburg at about 11:30 a.m. Nov. 15 and was almost immediately caught in traffic for hours. At about 5:40 p.m., she thought she saw a sign of hope when she was able to get around an 18-wheeler and use the shoulder to get off the highway and get gas. She then decided to try and take back roads home. Kerchner finally arrived in York after 7:30 p.m.

“There were cars stuck everywhere because they did not have all-wheel drive. This made me appreciate my new vehicle because I may not have made it off (Interstate) 83 and home in York,” she said.

Four months later, Kerchner sees it as a learning experience.

She stayed warm that day because she had jeans, boots, a heavy coat, gloves and a hat. She also had the car running for a while and turned it off occasionally to conserve gas.

“I felt a little stressed, but got through it. I’m kind of glad that I went through this experience, but I felt exhausted,” Kerchner said.

PennDOT says it has also learned from the experience.

As the state agency traced back the day’s events, they think the hours of gridlock started when empty tractor-trailers couldn’t make it up Reeser’s Summit.

In several subsequent storms, the state closed roads to commercial traffic for hours or a day at a time, ensuring unloaded tractor trailers wouldn’t set off a series of traffic problems.

Timing was another major factor in the November storm. Commuters like Kerchner left work at about 11:30 or noon, and the state also sent home its 12,000 workers around noon. It turned lunchtime traffic into rush hour, and PennDOT struggled to get its road crews to the impacted areas.

More:Thyroid cancer study re-ignites debate over Three Mile Island accident’s health effects

The most successful evacuations are planned days in advance. For example, a case study on the evacuation of Hurricane Rita in 2005 determined that a mass evacuation of a densely-populated area was needed three days prior to the hurricane making landfall.

Garnet Coleman, the Democratic State Representative from Houston asked, “Is the chance of dying greater in the movement than in the storm? That is the question we need to consider.”

The Rita evacuation was treacherous for people in Texas, where motorists were at a standstill for more than 20 hours in a September heat wave. Some of those drivers were stranded due to fuel shortages, said Lisa Dodson, 9-1-1 coordinator for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. in Gainesville, Virginia.

A review of the Rita evacuation prompted an important question, she said.

“While preparing your community for a hurricane, if the evacuation creates its own disaster, is evacuation still a good idea?”

If that answer is yes, and if state and local authorities issue an evacuation, experts recommend leaving immediately – regardless of road conditions.

That didn’t happen with the TMI disaster on March 28, 1979. It took 28 hours into the incident for Lt. Gov. William Scranton III to address the public and say everything was under control.

Later that day, which was a day after the meltdown began, Scranton changed his message to the public, saying it was more complex than the nuclear power plant first led government officials to believe.

Gov. Dick Thornburgh then advised the evacuation of pregnant women and preschoolers within a 5-mile radius of TMI. Two days after the meltdown began, the evacuation zone was extended to a 20-mile radius.

Some 140,000 people had left the area, but more than 332,000 remained.

Watch::Three Mile Island nuclear accident: Here's what happened 40 years ago

More:I have vivid memories of Three Mile Island 40 years ago - and one lingering concern

In the face of some of the worst conditions, the Federal Emergency Management Agency counts successes among several mass evacuations, but the TMI evacuation doesn’t make the list.

Since 9/11, FEMA includes these evacuations among successes:

9/11 Though it was a deadly day that forever changed a nation, 3,200 survivors evacuated from the World Trade Center, and another 500,000 evacuated from nearby high-rise buildings

Hurricane Frances – In September 2004, 2.8 million residents safely evacuated.

Hurricane Katrina – Some 484,000 residents evacuated, but numerous reports detail how many New Orleans residents were stranded and left behind.

Hurricane Rita – About 2.5 million people safely evacuated in Texas and Louisiana.

Wildfires – Some 900,000 people safely evacuated southern California in October 2007.

Hurricane Matthew – More than 2.5 million people safely evacuated Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in October 2016.

Hurricane Irma – About 7 million people evacuated Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in September 2017.

What Kelcher experienced on Nov. 15, sitting on a highway for 8 hours in York County, doesn’t compare to the destruction others faced in hurricanes or wildfires, or the heartbreaking loss of 9/11.

But it was enough to make her empathize with people who were stranded for nearly a day or longer.

It was enough to make her thankful for how that snowy day ended:

She made it home.

But with I-83 still ill-equipped for minor weather events, additional truck traffic and a mass evacuation, the question now is, can we make it out?