Motorists were sent on a 43-mile (69-kilometer) detour, which was going “better than it would do on a weekday,” Rudolph said. There was no immediate time frame for reopening the highway, but officials would consider “a fill-in situation or a temporary structure” to accelerate the effort, he said. The collapsed section of I-95 was part of a $212 million reconstruction project that wrapped up four years ago, Rudolph said. “For it to buckle and collapse that quickly, it’s pretty remarkable.” Soon after, the northbound lanes of the highway crumbled. He saw traffic in his rearview mirror come to a halt. Some kind of crash happened on a ramp underneath northbound I-95 around 6:15 a.m., said state Transportation Department spokesman Brad Rudolph, and the northbound section above the fire collapsed quickly. Runoff from the fire or perhaps broken gas lines caused explosions underground, he added.
The northbound lanes of I-95 were gone and the southbound lanes were “compromised” by heat from the fire, said Derek Bowmer, battalion chief of the Philadelphia Fire Department. The fire took about an hour to get under control.
Officials said the tanker contained a petroleum product that may have been hundreds of gallons of gasoline.
Roadside reflectors drivers#
Transportation officials warned of extensive delays and street closures and urged drivers to avoid the area in the city’s northeast corner. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - An elevated section of Interstate 95 collapsed early Sunday in Philadelphia after a tanker truck carrying flammable cargo caught fire, closing a heavily traveled segment of the East Coast’s main north-south highway indefinitely, authorities said.
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