The I-95 Fire: Bad luck followed by good

Governor Ned Lamont was joined by Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling, US Senator Richard Blumenthal, and representatives of state and local agencies at the Norwalk fire department on May 3 to provide an update about efforts to reopen Interstate-95 (I-95).

A fiery crash beneath the Fairfield Avenue Bridge in Norwalk on the morning of May 2  resulted in no injuries, but among the three vehicles involved was a tanker truck with a cargo of gasoline which ignited, drawing onlookers from the surrounding area who captured the moment on social media.

The fire was quickly contained and extinguished. The Norwalk Fire Department had facilities located at each end of the Fairfield Avenue Bridge, speeding the initial response time. King Industries, a specialty chemical manufacturer located in Norwalk, was also able to quickly respond to a request for help and bring to bear fire suppressants not only suited to handling fires with fluid fuel sources but also formulated to avoid environmental damage.

Police began their investigation within hours, with subsequent engineering inspections by the Department of Transportation (DOT) revealing that the Fairfield Avenue Bridge, which had been in service for fewer than ten years, would need to be removed. The gasoline fire had caused the steel elements in the bridge to soften and warp. Utility lines also ran across the bridge, requiring input from power and water companies before operations could start in earnest, but the need to remove the bridge became obvious in short order.

“Here we are, a little more than 24 hours later, and that bridge is going to be down very soon,” Governor Lamont said while crews worked to remove asphalt and concrete from the bridge. He noted that a pair of specialized “shears” were en-route from Long Island to cut through the damaged steel beams and complete the removal.

“My only advice to is stay away from this area for at least another 72 hours,” Lamont told the film crews and reporters from behind a podium resembling the hood of a vintage firetruck: Take the train, stay home. I think you can save yourself a lot of stress.”

Even as the full scale of the disruption caused by the fire was clear on the morning of May 2, calls were hurriedly made to find a demolition crew that could work fast, and Yonkers Contracting Company picked up the phone.

By the time the press conference was underway Yonkers Contracting employees working with the DOT had already made significant headway.

“We got the call Thursday morning,” said Senior Vice President of Construction at Yonkers Contracting Company Timothy Caulfield. “We got the call about mid-morning from Connecticut DOT folks to help come up with a plan to do what we can and do it as fast as we can to make the area safe and also get I-95 open for traffic.”

“We had other projects with the Connecticut DOT, and I guess that relationship and that trust they had played a part,” Caulfield said. “But it also comes down to the fact we were very close when that bridge caught fire, so our resources were very close.”

Heavy equipment and personnel were diverted from doing other work for the DOT roughly a mile away. With the gridlock caused by the shutdown of the highway and subsequent rerouting of the 160,000 cars that typically pass through that section of I-95, Caulfield said that some of the team found it faster to walk to the bridge to begin operations.

Events also worked out in just the right sequence according to Caulfield, preventing logistic log jams or idle equipment. Yonkers Contracting has the mechanical shears necessary to cut through the beams as the final stage of bridge removal, but the concrete and asphalt need to be removed first. By the time the shears arrived from a site on Long Island, the crews that were first on the scene were ready for them.

“We were able to systematically and efficiently take down the bridge with the equipment that was more immediate and when the other equipment arrived a bit later it just steamrolled into place.”

“We basically worked around the clock from Thursday afternoon until Sunday Afternoon,” Caulfield said, noting that rain which arrived later than anticipated allowed them to complete the operation to reopen the highway ahead of schedule.

“We were honored that the DOT asked us to help with resolving this major issue not only for the state of Connecticut but for the Northeast Coast of the United States,” said Caulfield. “I-95 is the main thoroughfare, especially for trucks. The only other highway that can handle any volume of vehicular traffic is the Merritt and that can’t handle trucks.”

Even as the region began to breathe easier with the reopening of I-95 (and the lessening of exhaust from thousands of idling engines) some questions about the future remained.

At the same conference where Lamont urged people to avoid the area for another 72 hours, Senator Blumenthal took the podium to announce that Connecticut residents are not on the hook for the repairs.

“The people of Connecticut should know that the cost of this repair is going to be borne by the federal government,” Blumenthal said. “The money is there, it doesn’t have to be appropriated, it doesn’t have to be authorized. There is federal highway administration money there for emergency relief designed to meet exactly this need.”

“We’re going to be demanding money to cover all the costs, probably in the tens of millions of dollars, at least $20 million. And we have every assurance that the Department of Transportation will provide this emergency relief so none of the cost is borne by Connecticut taxpayers,” said Blumenthal.

Blumenthal said to expect the impact on local traffic will continue to be severe, on par with what occurred after the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge in 1983.

Fortunately, the senator’s comparison to the disaster in Greenwich was not entirely accurate. Traffic in both directions across all six lanes resumed Sunday morning, and the state had already received $3 million in quick response funds from the Federal Highway Administration.

While there will likely be traffic impacts as a result of replacing the Fairfield Avenue Bridge, which is an important local roadway, it is anticipated to be a far cry from the effort required to completely replace a major portion of the highway itself. As of yet no indication that any aspect of the emergency response or level of preparedness could be any higher.

Beyond the ultimate price of demolition and reconstruction, the economic impact of the disruption is not yet clear, but it will likely be eclipsed by that caused by the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in late March.

Work on the replacement for the Fairfield Avenue Bridge is anticipated to begin in roughly a year, at which point partial lane closures may occur to enable construction.