After a day of backups and detours, those who traveled north for the weekend were finally able to get home Sunday as congestion cleared and part of the Interstate was reopened.

Good news for travelers came Sunday around 8:30 p.m., when Interstate 90-94 eastbound between Highway 12 and Highway 78 was opened, after the eastbound lanes had been completely closed because of flooding near Portage. Traffic is now only restricted on that stretch between mile markers 105 and 106, where only the left lane can be used.

But a backup plagued many travelers on southbound I-39, where an especially long traffic jam formed Sunday night north of Portage because of the heavy volume of vehicles trying to get off the Interstate, which was closed at Highway 16, and onto detours, the State Patrol said.

The backup cleared as the night went on, and by 11:30 p.m. the area was clear and motorists could more easily get onto the detour.

For much of Sunday afternoon, backups spanned between 2 and 5 miles around both Wisconsin Dells and Portage as motorists use the detours, the State Patrol said. There were no reports of anyone running out of fuel in the delays, they said. The State Patrol said drivers were not allowed to make an illegal U-turn to escape the backup on I-39 by heading back north on Interstate in search of alternate routes.

The Department of Transportation has a toll-free phone number for road-closure updates: 800-762-3947.

Check madison.com/wsj for updates and read tomorrow's State Journal.

"It's an ever-changing situation. They're continuing to monitor the situation and certainly will make changes as it becomes safe to do so," said Jessica Iverson, of Wisconsin Emergency Management.