C. Abbonizio performs emergency demolition of the collapsed I-95 overpass in Philadelphia. (PennDOT photo.)
UPDATE: Interstate 95 reopened Friday, June 23, fewer than two weeks after a deadly collapse in Philadelphia, a quicker-than-expected rebuild to get traffic flowing again on a heavily traveled stretch of the East Coast's main north-south highway.
Workers were putting the finishing touches on an interim six-lane roadway that will serve motorists during construction of a permanent bridge. Crews worked around the clock and were poised to finish ahead of schedule.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) supervised the around-the-clock work to get three lanes open in each direction as a temporary solution while crews build a permanent bridge to replace the section that collapsed on June 11. PennDOT plans to construct one bridge first, and direct traffic over it while the other overpass is built.
Buckley & Co., a Philadelphia builder, is the project's general contractor.
"We will build it to the highest standards," PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll assured reporters.
PennDOT rated the 104-ft. highway span as being in good condition earlier this year, with another inspection set for 2025.
The accident occurred when a tanker truck filled with gasoline crashed and exploded underneath the overpass, causing it to fall onto the vehicle, killing the driver. The southbound I-95 bridge over Cottman Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia also sustained enough damage that the state closed the highway in both directions until it could be replaced.
The demolition of both overpasses will be completed by June 15, Shapiro said, rather than the following week as originally thought.
The steel, rebar and concrete are being broken up and hauled away by New Jersey-based C. Abbonizio Contractors Inc., which already had big machinery nearby working on a sewer line project before the accident, according to WTFX-TV FOX29 in Philadelphia.
Shapiro and other officials noted that the work will continue "around the clock," but gave no timeline for its completion.
"We will get this job done as quickly as possible," he said in response to several questions, adding that that a live feed online will be set up so that area residents can watch the repairs to I-95.
The governor also refused to be lured into estimating the cost of reestablishing the highway connection beyond the $7 million in state funds he made available for the reconstruction through a disaster emergency proclamation he signed earlier in the week.
Truck Driver Lost His Life in Accident
Officials say the tanker truck's driver, Nathan Moody, died from blunt trauma of the head, inhalation and thermal injuries. His manner of death was ruled an accident, reported WPVI-TV in Philadelphia.
He was hauling 8,500 gallons of gasoline on June 11 while trying to navigate a left-hand turn after exiting at the Cottman Avenue offramp of I-95.
According to Carroll, Moody lost control through his turn, and the tanker fell on its side and ruptured its own tank. Once ignited, the fuel burned at a high enough heat to structurally compromise the concrete and steel I-beams of the overpass.
PSP said video of the crash and explosion is now part of the investigation.
According to family members, Moody worked for TK Transport in Pennsauken, N.J, and was described as an experienced truck driver.
While touring the wreckage the afternoon of June 11, Shapiro described the scene as "remarkable devastation." He and officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation cautioned motorists to expect detours and called for Philadelphia residents to embrace public transit for an unknown period as the highway is rebuilt.
Just before noon June 12, Shapiro signed a proclamation of disaster emergency allowing the state to dip into federal funds and cut red tape to hasten repairs on one of the busiest interstates in the region. Interstate 95 typically carries about 160,000 vehicles through Philadelphia each day.
The conditions to create such a calamity are so rare that highway bridges are not typically built to be fireproof like buildings, an engineering expert at Philadelphia's Drexel University told the Washington Post.
"We don't design them for fire resistance because we don't expect to have any types of fire incidents," said Amir Farnam, who studies reinforced-concrete infrastructure and estimated that it would take temperatures of 500 degrees Celsius to cut the steel used in highway girders in half.
Tanker Slammed Into Wall While Exiting I-95
The inferno began after the tanker driver took an off-ramp and crashed into a wall while trying to go around a curve at about 6:20 a.m. June 11, state officials said, causing the overpass on I-95 northbound to fall onto the truck.
A northbound slice of the road cratered and the southbound overpass became structurally unsound after the tanker exploded, billowing huge plumes of smoke, and burning with such intensity that steel girders supporting the highway bridge melted.
After reaching the scene at I-95's Cottman Avenue exit about 10 minutes after the first alarm, it took Philadelphia firefighters about an hour to get the blaze under control, PFD said, and stayed on the scene during the day as a precaution.
From June 11 overnight into the next morning, demolition crews worked to clear the collapsed section of the road. As the sun rose June 12, heavy equipment could be seen hauling away some of the ruins of the collapsed roadway structure.
Interstate 95, a major north-south artery that carries freight and goods from Maine to Florida, functions as a key connection to other primary highways including the New Jersey Turnpike or Interstate 295, which splits off in Delaware to carry travelers passing through the region around Philadelphia as they continue up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
Federal Officials Promise Swift Response
While crews work around the clock clean up the debris, CNN reported that federal investigators are probing the tanker truck fire that led to the collapse.
Examiners are also monitoring the emergency response as crews sift through rubble to get to the tanker truck — a focus of the investigation, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The tanker was carrying fuel bound for delivery at a local Wawa gas station, she added.
"We have to get in and see what we think happened with the tanker truck," Homendy explained, underscoring the chain of events will remain unclear until investigators can examine the truck's cab. "There are lots of different scenarios."
Investigators also could consider the structural makeup of the bridge, she noted.
NTSB spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick told CNN that the agency's "investigators are specialists in motor carrier and hazardous materials safety, highway and technical reconstruction, and emergency response."
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the site June 13 and will help local officials swiftly address the extensive disruption caused by the collapse.
"To be clear, swiftly is not going to be overnight," Buttigieg told reporters at an event hosted by the American Council of Engineering Companies. "We're talking about major structural work."
He added that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is working with adjacent states to alert drivers about the collapse and help with traffic plans. He urged travelers planning to cross through the region to pay close attention to local traffic alerts as "we expect significant regional impact."
While the exact cost of repairing the crucial roadway is still unclear, Shapiro said Pennsylvania is working with federal officials on a "speedy rebuild of I-95."
The governor said Buttigieg "has assured me that there will be absolutely no delay in getting federal funds deployed to quickly help us rebuild this critical artery.
"I-95, of course, is a critical roadway that supports our economy and plays an important role in folks' everyday lives," Shapiro said.
All lanes of I-95 are shut down between the exits for Woodhaven Road in Northeast Philadelphia and Aramingo Avenue in the Port Richmond section of the city. Some surrounding streets also are closed for the emergency response.
As a result, commutes have moved slowly on nearby streets as drivers tested new routes around the closed highway.
A ‘Dip' Seen On Overpass Just After Accident
Mark Fusetti was driving south on I-95 to pick up his son from the Philadelphia airport early June 11 just before the collapse when he saw large plumes of dark smoke and used his cellphone to begin filming, initially thinking there was a brush fire.
The video he recorded appears to show his car and other vehicles driving over a "dip" along I-95 as smoke billowed from under both sides of the highway. He told CNN he was startled by the dip, saying, "it felt like you drove off a curb."
"I realized what happened when I looked in my rear-view mirror," he added. "I see I-95 — all of the cars stopping — and then I learned shortly after that the road had just collapsed."
Some of the gasoline from the tanker truck spilled into a drainage system that ends in the nearby Delaware River, where the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) used a boom to contain the spillage. USCG Ensign Josh Ledoux, though, said it did not appear that the contents were spreading into the environment.
"As far as waterways go, it's being contained, and it seems like things are under control," he explained.
USCG officials later confirmed to WPVI-TV that there was no sheening on the Delaware River, which signals no gasoline reached the river from the truck. There was a small amount of sheening in a cove next to the river, but none in the river itself.
They added that the water is safe for city residents to use and consume.
I-95 Drivers Will Have to Endure Traffic Lights Again
Shapiro said that due to the expected time it will take to make repairs to the highway, his office was looking into "alternatives to connect the roadway beyond detours."
Most drivers traveling the I-95 corridor between Delaware and New York City use the New Jersey Turnpike rather than the segment of interstate where the collapse occurred.
Until 2018, drivers did not have a direct highway connection between I-95 in Pennsylvania and I-95 in New Jersey. Instead, they had to use a few miles of surface roads, with traffic lights, to get from one to the other — an alternative that they may have to rely on again, at least for a while.
Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat whose district includes the damaged section of the highway, told CNN that "you are literally going to have millions of people in what is one of the largest population centers in the country impacted in a significant way."
In speaking with CNN June 12, PennDOT's Carroll said officials from New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland have been "quite helpful" managing I-95 traffic in the wake of the bridge collapse.
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