Massive Fire Causes Section of I-95 to Collapse in Philadelphia, Officials Predict Months of Traffic Nightmares

Red State ^ | 06/10/2023 | Bob Hoge

[SeekAndFind]

A section of the I-95 collapses in Philadelphia. (Credit: Washington's ghost)

A massive fire caused a section of Interstate 95 to collapse Sunday morning in Northeast Philadelphia, causing both directions of travel to be shut down. Although no fatalities have been reported, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said that a person may still be trapped inside a vehicle underneath the rubble.

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Brad Rudolph said the cause of the disaster was still under investigation but that it did not appear to be due to foul play. Fox News, however, is reporting that a tanker tank may have exploded:

Chaos ensued when a tanker truck caught fire when reportedly traveling under an overpass, causing the elevated structure to collapse. Authorities believe the truck could have been carrying hundreds of gallons of gasoline.

“That structure quickly collapsed with the heat of the fire as big as it was,” Rudolph said. “And then the southbound structure was also shut down because it was compromised by the fire as well.”

Scenes from the site were harrowing:

This is insane 😳 They are incredibly lucky it didn’t collapse while you were driving over it. 🙏🏾


#grindfacetv
TT/ barb_wire#I95Collapse #Philadelphia pic.twitter.com/zh32h9KPYs

— GrindFace TV (Entertainment) (@grindfacetv) June 11, 2023

President Joe Biden has been made aware of the situation, and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said they’d be willing to offer any assistance needed:

The President has been briefed on the collapse and White House officials have been in contact with Governor Shapiro and Mayor Kenney's offices to offer assistance.

— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) June 11, 2023

Authorities said that the bridge would take weeks to fix, creating traffic nightmares for the surrounding areas. As a former East Coaster, I can tell you that the I-95 is one of the most important corridors for the entire region, and its closure will create havoc. This particular section carries at least 160,000 vehicles a day.

General Manager of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Leslie Richards said, “This is an emergency that has created a tremendous challenge for our transportation network. We are all going to need some extra patience in the coming days.”

The situation reminds me of what the City of Los Angeles experienced in 1994 when a portion of the 10 freeway collapsed during the Northridge earthquake. Although officials predicted that the closure would cause chaos for months, it was actually re-opened 74 days earlier than expected due to Herculean efforts by the contractors.

Let’s hope the folks in Philly experience similar results. Officials say they will know more Monday morning about the extent of the damage.

I95 overpass collapsed in Philadelphia pic.twitter.com/Kevnlvopjs

— Washingtons ghost (@hartgoat) June 11, 2023

[Pollard]

A massive fire

The size of a truck that caught fire under the bridge. Over the top news blog headline.

Truck burned hot. Concrete breaks when it's heated and then rebar bends when heated. I've seen people burn old mobile homes thinking they'll have a trailer leftover. Ends up being a very twisted trailer. Fire burns hot. Who knew?

[Pollard]

FL is a right to work state, no union and being a boom town, they’ve had a lot of practice building highways over the past several decades and got pretty fast in the past few decades.

PA will be union and affirmative action so it’s probably gonna take a while.

[COBOL2Java]

Yep- put a private company in charge. I remember in Ca when the highway collapsed in an earthquake and a private company had it fixed and up and running months earlier than estimated.

But bring up a company from the south. Remember the ‘Big Dig’ and that union nightmare in the north.

I remember from my days when I lived in Brooklyn, about how the government wanted to build a power plant out on Long Island. They hired the Teamsters, who brought in two separate crews: one to work on the power plant during the day, and a night crew to disassemble everything that was built. That way, the Teamsters could keep charging the government. This went on for years.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

A the beginning of this tale, a Freeper had stated there was collapse, and another piped up with “...not! Prove it.” Shan't cite monikers, but, when considering “news” which is often sensational. marketing oriented or propaganda-driven, waiting for the outcome of any situation is often warranted.

[GranTorino]

That concrete was probably filled with a foam core.
Anyone know where the missing fertilizer went?
Those flames sure look like ammonium nitrate burning.
Isn’t that odd?

[GranTorino]

See #25 for my take.
Anyone want to know how to take out a bridge?
fbi just showed you.

[rlmorel]

Biden was probably in charge:

And now, a Transcript from the Translator for The Hearing Impaired:

TRANSLATION for the Hearing Impaired: "It is time to begin drinking, which is good. I will find some young girl, feel her breasts, and rub up against her, deny the accusations, and cut off the writing hand of any reporter who makes a big deal about it. I don't understand why people make such a fuss about it."

[RinaseaofDs]

Get an elite contractor like Skanska, and tell them they have 30 days, but every day earlier than that they get a bonus, and watch what happens.

Skanska is an impressive company. If they had to, I’d wager they could have this fixed in one week. Not kidding.

[Pollard]

Hopefully the leftist climate crazies won’t get any ideas.

[GranTorino]

Already have.
A bunch of the Canadian fires started simultaneously near roadways.
Some weird smoke there also.

[Ex-Con777]

FTA -”President Joe Biden has been made aware of the situation, and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said they’d be willing to offer any assistance needed:”

The Doofus in Chief does not need to offer assistance. We already paid 18.4 cents per gallon to fund the federal Highway Trust Fund. That is exactly what this fund has been set up for when it was established in 1956.

I seem to remember in 1997 Congressman Bud Shuster(R-PA) forcing through a bill that required the gas tax to be spent on roads. I wonder if that got wiped clean by some middle of the night omnibus spending bill.

EC

[GingisK]

Looks like they followed the Atlanta model for bridge renewal.

[GingisK]

It doesn’t burn, it decomposes. Oxygen isn’t consumed, but water is driven out of the molecular bonds.

[GingisK]

Concrete bridge sections are hollow, filled with air. Ammonium nitrate does not itself burn, but will provide oxygen for something else. On the other hand, ammonium nitrate will explode if detonated by another explosive. It is very clear that this did not happen.

Concrete disintegrates when it gets hot. It decomposes into the raw materials used when the concrete was made when water is driven from the molecular bonds. The concrete itself doesn't not burn, it reverts to cement powder.

This happened in Atlanta a few years ago. Construction materials were stored under the bridge and vagrants set it on fire. It takes about four months to rebuild what was destroyed in Atlanta.

[Cowgirl of Justice]

My brother was working at a convention in Connecticut and had to pay for a union worker just to bring him an extension cord because they said he couldn’t use his own extension cord even though it was the same one. He refused and the next morning when he went to his kiosk, everything had been removed.

[READINABLUESTATE]

Massive traffic disruption, LGBTQ community hardest hit.

/s

[COBOL2Java]

Sounds about right. Thank God your brother didn’t get kneecapped by some Teamster.

[rottndog]

IIRC Kalifornia actually did a smart thing waived lots of union requirements under a state of emergency after the ‘94 quake.