An overpass on Interstate 95 that collapsed in North Philadelphia on Sunday will take months to replace, officials said, snarling a bustling East Coast corridor during the summer travel season and severing a main commercial artery for the city.
Standing before the wreckage of what he called “remarkable devastation,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and other officials warned motorists to expect detours and embrace public transit for an unknown period as the highway is rebuilt. Traffic during the Monday morning commute moved slowly on nearby streets as drivers tested new routes around the closed highway.
“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.A minute after the blaze was reported to emergency responders, Tara Hallinan, 30, found herself faced with a wall of bright orange flames.
The closure — between Exit 32 for Academy Road and Linden Avenue and Exit 30 for Cottman Avenue and Rhawn Street — impacts a mostly residential slice of the city home to the Bustleton and Tacony neighborhoods, which were settled by Irish, Italian and German immigrants but now bustle with a racially diverse population of Indians, Russians, and other immigrant families and store owners.
Detours on Sunday included Route 63 West , U.S. 1 South, Interstate 76 East and Interstate 676 East for southbound I-95. Instead of northbound I-95, the city recommended that motorists use I-676 West, I-76 West, U.S. 1 North to Route 63 East . The fire was reported at 6:20 a.m., with Philadelphia firefighters arriving on scene at the Cottman Avenue exit about 10 minutes later. It took about an hour for them to get the blaze under control, the Philadelphia Fire Department said in a tweet, and personnel were expected to remain overnight to monitor the spill for new fires.The tanker was carrying as much as 8,500 gallons of gasoline, some of which spilled into a drainage system that ends in the nearby Delaware River, where the U.S.
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