3-mile stretch of I-95 reopens in Pennsylvania

The Associated Press

3/20/2008

PHILADELPHIA — Truckers and other motorists Thursday morning rolled on a three-mile stretch of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia that had been closed for more than two days for repairs.

Rush hour motorists had been fighting massive traffic jams on area surface streets as crews worked to shore up a fractured concrete support pillar on the major East Coast artery.

Officials had hoped to reopen the highway at midnight, but Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Gene Blaum says extra time was taken to beef up the repairs.

Blaum says eight steel plates known as "stiffeners" were welded to the beams under the elevated highway. Then Thursday morning, sixteen jacks were used to lift the load of the elevated highway deck off the damaged concrete pillar.

Heavy salt trucks were driven across the shored up area, then parked on it to test the stability of the repair under a load. PennDOT supervisor Nick Martino gave the word to reopen I-95 about 6:30 a.m.

The road was closed about midnight Monday, just hours after the fractured concrete column was discovered by structural engineer Peter Kim.

Kim is an employee of Specialty Engineering, a Bristol consulting firm that does contract work for PennDOT.

He had inspected the column twice in the last three years and its condition had been relatively stable. He saw Monday that the crack had dramatically widened since he checked it in December. He took pictures of the crumbling concrete with his cell phone and called PennDOT immediately.