Work crews began demolishing a bridge damaged in a fiery crash that kept Interstate 95 in Connecticut closed for a second day Friday, as motorists’ nerves continued to fray in hours of traffic jams on and around the main artery linking New England and New York.
“It’s crazy,” said Marco Ortiz, a tattoo artist at Javier Eastman Tattoo Studios in Norwalk on Connecticut Avenue, one of the detours jammed bumper-to-bumper. “I’ve seen people beeping, trying to cut other people off, making faces, hand gestures. It’s not good. You’ve got to be patient. What else can we do? It was a really bad accident.”
The highway remained shut down in both directions after Thursday morning’s three-vehicle wreck, in which a gasoline tanker burst into flames that engulfed the Fairfield Avenue overpass above I-95 in Norwalk and damaged the structure.
Gov. Ned Lamont said plans to reopen all six lanes before rush hour Monday morning appeared to be on track.
“And here we are more than 24 hours later, that bridge is going to be down very soon,” Lamont said at a news conference in Norwalk on Friday. “The shears are coming in to lift off the final piece of this. Get the asphalt back in place. And hopefully … we get I-95 going in both directions on Monday.”
About 160,000 vehicles travel that section of I-95 in both directions daily, officials said. Detours on local roads added up to an hour or more to trips through the area for some motorists, while others sought alternate routes far from the scene.
John Blair, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, said the trucking industry group has been working with state police and the DOT to get the word out to truckers across the Northeast about safe alternate routes, which include I-84.
He said there were problems over the past 24 hours with tractor-trailer drivers who don’t know Connecticut well striking low bridges or taking down power lines on local roads as they try to drive around the closure. State police said they were aware of only one incident where a commercial vehicle struck a bridge overpass in New Canaan on the Merritt Parkway, which bans tractor trailers because of low bridge heights.
Blair said his group has been trying to get long-haul truckers to avoid that part of state.
“We are pushing them up north as best as we can,” Blair said. “We’re trying to get to them before they get to Connecticut and have them avoid 95 completely.”
Workers started tearing down the bridge on Friday morning using excavators — one on each side of the highway — armed with jackhammers. Bucket loaders scooped up the debris that fell on the highway below and dumped it in containers that were hauled away by trucks.
The shears that Lamont spoke of are special heavy equipment that will be used to cut down the metal support components of the bridge beginning Saturday morning,