Pennsylvania will truck in 2,000 tons of lightweight glass nuggets to help quickly rebuild a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia and crews will work 24 hours a day until they can reopen the critical commercial artery, officials said Wednesday. By using the recycled glass to fill in the collapsed area, they'll be able to avoid supply-chain delays for other materials, Gov. Josh Shapiro said. But Shapiro repeatedly declined to estimate how long it will take to get traffic flowing again on the busy East Coast highway, the AP reports. "We’re going to get this job done as quickly as possible," Shapiro said at a news conference, over the sounds of heavy machinery working to clear wreckage.
Investigators are still looking into into why a truck hauling gasoline went out of control on an off-ramp and flipped on its side, igniting a fire early Sunday that caused the collapse of the northbound lanes of I-95 and severely damaged the southbound lanes. Shapiro said unionized workers will work nonstop until the job is done. Under the plan, crews will not immediately rebuild the bridge, which is roughly 100 feet long and 150 feet wide. Instead, workers will fill the gap by piling recycled foam glass aggregate into the underpass area, bringing it up to surface level and then paving it over so that three lanes of traffic can reopen each way, Shapiro said.
"This approach will allow us to avoid delays due to shipping and supply chain issues and pursue a simple, quicker path," Shapiro said. After that, a replacement bridge will be built next to it to reroute traffic while crews excavate the fill to restore the exit ramp, officials said. The Biden administration is pledging its aid as the collapse snarls traffic in Philadelphia as the summer travel season starts. It has upended hundreds of thousands of morning commutes, disrupted countless businesses, and forced trucking companies to find different routes.
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Demolition of both the northbound and southbound lanes in the overpass is expected to finish Thursday, and trucks hauling glass aggregate could start arriving the same day, officials said. The body of tanker truck driver Nathaniel Moody, 53, was found in the wreckage Monday. (More Philadelphia stories.)
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