Rebuilding efforts following Philadelphia I-95 collapse will begin after demolition is completed Thursday, governor says

By Lauren Mascarenhas, Nouran Salahieh, Celina Tebor and Danny Freeman, CNN

(CNN) — Demolition work on the section of Interstate 95 that collapsed in Philadelphia on Sunday will be completed by Thursday, when teams will begin working around the clock to rebuild the overpass, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Wednesday.

The interstate crumbled after a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline crashed and exploded in flames under the highway, officials said. Crews have been working around the clock on demolition efforts.

Once demolition is complete, Shapiro said, the gap in the highway created by the collapse will be filled and paved so that traffic can resume on the interstate while teams work to permanently rebuild the overpass.

“Motorists will be able to travel on I-95 once it’s paved on top of the fill,” Shapiro said. “It’ll then allow us the opportunity to work on building the bridge and keeping six lanes of traffic open at once. This is the speediest, safest way that will allow us to get back to capacity on the 95,” Shapiro said at a news conference near the site of the collapse.

Material to fill the gap in the roadway will be on site by Thursday, the governor said. He did not provide a specific time frame or cost for completion of the project but emphasized that construction work would continue around the clock until it is completed.

“When y’all are sleeping in the middle of the night, when I’m sleeping in the middle of night, these guys are going to be working on this road,” Shapiro said, gesturing to the construction workers and transportation officials standing behind him.

Shapiro stressed the federal government’s financial support in rebuilding efforts.

“I’m confident lawmakers will give us whatever help, support, resources we need in order to see this job through,” he told reporters.

Shapiro issued a disaster declaration Monday, saying it will allow the state to dip into federal funds and cut red tape to expedite repairs. The proclamation makes $7 million in state funds immediately available for reconstruction.

An initial payment of $3 million was sent to Pennsylvania late Tuesday, the head of the Federal Highway Administration, Shailen Bhatt, told a Senate committee Wednesday.

The northbound stretch of the interstate collapsed onto the truck. Southbound lanes were also compromised and need to be repaired. The collapse has caused major disruption for traffic, and the primary detour is about 23 miles using state or interstate roads, local transportation officials said earlier in the week.

The bridge was up to current standards at the time of the collapse, Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll told reporters at the news conference. “The bridge was structurally sound,” he said. “The bridge was only 10 years old.”

Shapiro originally said it could take months to restore the crumbled section of the highway that typically carries about 160,000 vehicles through Philadelphia daily. About 8% of those vehicles are trucks that will now need to take longer, more costly routes, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said when he visited the site of the collapse Tuesday.

“That is a lot of America’s GDP moving along that road every day,” he said.

Buttigieg said his agency will provide “every resource that is needed” to help local officials address the effect the collapse is having on commuters and the movement of goods in the area.

The impact of the collapse is expected to ripple across the state and the Northeast. The incident was “causing what we know will be extensive disruption for the movement of people and goods through that region,” Buttigieg said Tuesday.

Residents in the area have been warned to expect delays to trash collection and bus routes.

All lanes of I-95 are closed between the Woodhaven and Aramingo exits, the city of Philadelphia said. Commuters have been forced to find new routes to work, with traffic impacts stretching far beyond the interstate.

Investigation underway

A body recovered from the wreckage was identified Tuesday as Nathan Moody, the driver of the truck that crashed underneath the freeway before bursting into flames.

Moody was a 53-year-old father of three and a career truck driver, said his cousin Isaac Moody. He died of blunt trauma to the head, inhalation and thermal injuries, Philadelphia Department of Health spokesperson James Garrow told CNN.

The National Transportation Safety Board said earlier this week that the tanker truck will be an initial focus of its investigation into the incident. The truck was carrying gasoline bound for delivery to a local Wawa gas station.

“We have to get in and see what we think happened with the tanker truck,” said NTSB chief Jennifer Homendy. “There are lots of different scenarios.”

The company operating the gasoline tanker that sparked the inferno, Penn Tank Lines, was in good standing prior to the collision, the NTSB said Wednesday. It said the information came from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates commercial vehicles.

Investigators from the NTSB, FMCSA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration met with officials from Penn Tank Lines on Wednesday and “gathered information about its operations and procedures,” the NTSB said in a statement.

CNN has reached out to Penn Tank Lines for comment.

Investigators might also need to examine the structural makeup of the bridge, Homendy said.

Pennsylvania State Police said Monday that officials will not launch a criminal investigation into the collapse.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.