Months of repairs and travel headaches are ahead after an I-95 bridge collapsed in a fire

An elevated section of I-95 in Northeast Philadelphia collapsed early Sunday after a tanker truck carrying gasoline burst into flames beneath it, severing the main expressway on the East Coast and causing travel chaos in the region that will be felt for some time.

Four northbound lanes fell onto Cottman Avenue in the city’s Tacony neighborhood after steel girders supporting the roadway were weakened in the searing fire, officials said. The interstate was closed in both directions between Woodhaven Road and Aramingo Avenue.

Standing within view of the collapsed and charred section of roadway Sunday night, Gov. Josh Shapiro said he would issue a disaster declaration Monday morning, a step that will allow Pennsylvania to receive federal aid.

“Remarkable devastation,” Shapiro said, describing his view of the scene from a helicopter. “I found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died.”

Both he and Mayor Jim Kenney spoke to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who personally assured them that “we will have the resources we need,” Shapiro said.

» READ MORE: What commuters can do after the I-95 shutdown

Nobody thought it would be easy. Officials predicted it would take months for a complete repair. And at least for awhile, commuting in and around the city could be a world of pain, they said, though in the hybrid-work era Mondays and Fridays tend to have lighter traffic.

“Oh Christ, it’s going to be a mess. This traffic’s going to kill the summer,” said Michael McFadden, who lives a few blocks away in Tacony and walked up to the scene with his wife, Lisa, to see what they could see.

PennDot is recommending detours, and SEPTA planned to initially add cars to some already scheduled Regional Rail trains, and to suspend parking fees at stations and is preparing for more riders on the Market-Frankford Line and bus routes. Leslie S. Richards, CEO of the transit agency, asked for patience: “It is going to take longer than normal to get to work tomorrow.”

The Philadelphia Fire Department said it responded to the blaze beneath I-95 about 6:30 a.m. Sunday; crews declared it under control at 7:30 a.m. Authorities have not determined what caused the truck to catch fire — and have disclosed no information on the driver.

No injuries or deaths have been reported, though Kenney said Sunday night “we understand the situation remains fluid.” Shapiro said “at least one vehicle” remained trapped in the rubble.

“We’re still working to identify any individual or individuals who may have been caught in the fire,” he said.

The fire called to mind the conflagration of March 1996, when an illegal tire dump under I-95 caught fire, melting guard rails and buckling the pavement. The highway was closed for several weeks and partial closures lasted for six months.

Seven teenagers were charged with arson and the dump’s owner was sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $3 million toward repairs.

Late Sunday afternoon, the National Transportation Safety Board announced it was sending a team to investigate the gasoline tanker fire and I-95 collapse, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania State Police.

Fire caused 30 U.S. bridge failures from 1980 to 2012 — roughly one per year — according to an analysis by University of Buffalo engineers.

Of the 30 bridges that failed due to fire, 13 were made of steel, like the one that collapsed Sunday on I-95. Concrete bridges tend to be more fire-resistant, but they are not immune, and accounted for five of those 30 failures. (The rest were wood.)

The tanker had a capacity of 8,500 gallons, but it was not immediately clear how full it was when it caught fire and spilled its cargo, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Most of the gasoline remained on land, Coast Guard officials said, but a slight sheen was visible on the nearby Delaware River, and the agency deployed floating booms.

Neighbors from the blocks around the fire gathered at the police line on Cottman Avenue to get a glimpse of the scene. Dawn Heller, who lives nearby, walked down after getting an alert on her Citizen app. “I couldn’t understand what happened — I had to come see for myself,” she said.

Sierra Jones woke up to a barrage of text messages from friends asking if she was OK — and then heard several muffled explosions. (Some people reported seeing manhole covers flying up in the air.)

“It’s mind-blowing,” Jones said.

Jones uses I-95 to get to her job as a massage therapist in Yardley and is unsure how she’ll do that now — she expects that traffic will clog her neighborhood like never before as people take alternate routes while the highway is closed.

“I guess I’ll just take the train,” she said.

City health officials said that the tanker truck fire had no impact on air quality, surely a relief after a week of hazardous smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed the city. The Water Department said that the gasoline spill had no effect on the city’s drinking water.

The 103-foot section of elevated roadway was not on the state’s list of bridges with structural concerns, said Brad Rudolph, a spokesperson for PennDot. It had been upgraded within the last 10 years as part of the massive 95 Revive reconstruction of the interstate, he said.

The agency’s engineers believe the southbound section opposite the collapsed piece was compromised in the fire and is not “structurally sound” to carry cars, Shapiro said. PennDot officials are looking at temporary solutions that would link I-95 together again in a few weeks while the sections are being repaired and rebuilt, he added.

Exposed steel girders like those that supported the collapsed I-95 bridge are more susceptible to heat than if they had been made from steel-reinforced concrete, said Amir Farnam, an associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Drexel University.

Steel melts at temperatures above 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the alloy used, but the metal starts to fail at temperatures well below that, Farnam said — it loses about 20% of its strength at 750 degrees, and about half of its strength at 1,000 degrees.

“When you have a fire like this, … the yield strength of the steel decreases drastically, and it fails,” Farnam said.

That doesn’t mean the bridge had a design flaw, he said. Given the tight space constraints, steel girders likely were the appropriate design choice, he said. Concrete is usually used to sheath steel in buildings for fireproofing.

Staff writers Rob Tornoe and Nick Vadala contributed to this report.