I-95 damage, detour snarl key Boston-NYC artery

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- State officials say a section of Interstate 95 will be closed for at least two weeks following a tanker-truck accident that unleashed an inferno of home heating oil and buckled a highway bridge, interrupting traffic along the most important artery between New York City and Boston yesterday and sending thousands of detoured cars and 18-wheelers into congested city streets.

The accident's aftermath is expected to produce a traffic nightmare. Although the northbound lanes might reopen by next week, the southbound side could be shut for two weeks or more as the bridge is torn down and replaced by a temporary structure, according to state transportation officials.

The state was buying a prefabricated temporary bridge last night from New Jersey to replace a section of the overpass, the Associated Press reported.

The federal government has agreed to give the state $11.2 million in highway aid to cover the reconstruction costs.

State officials offered no predictions on how long it might take to build a permanent replacement.

Meanwhile, Governor John G. Rowland and State Police urged commercial traffic from Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey to use Interstate 84 to enter Connecticut, or find routes that avoid the state.

"This is a real challenge," said Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut.. "Putting 15,000 trucks that normally travel over the bridge onto I-84 is going to be exciting. It's just going to plug up. You just can't push that much freight through that artery."

I-84 already is a primary route for westbound traffic heading to Western Connecticut and parts of New York north of New York City. That road connects with the Massachusetts Turnpike, which also braced for swelling volume as northbound truckers were being advised to travel to Albany, N.Y, then east to Boston.

The accident occurred on an I-95 overpass about 8 p.m. Thursday. State Police said the southbound tanker, carrying 12,000 gallons of home heating oil, spilled its cargo after striking a concrete barrier, apparently to avoid a car.

No one was seriously injured, but thousands of commercial trucks were forced to seek alternate routes between Boston and New York, adding hours to their trips and delaying deliveries. Traffic on I-84 increased dramatically yesterday, as it also did on smaller state roads such as Route 8 between Naugatuck and Bridgeport and the commuter-heavy Merritt Parkway, which does not allow commercial traffic.

"Two words: It's terrible," declared Fairfield Police Chief Joseph Sambrook, who said shortcut-seeking drivers were clogging streets in that community from every direction. "We're going to have a lot of grouchy cops for a while."

Justine Michaud, a Stratford resident, said the closure also created problems for people who used I-95 for quick local trips. She described her travels yesterday as "absolute hell . . . People who've lived in this area for years are being forced to pull out their maps to figure out how to get a few miles down the road."

In Bridgeport, Fire Chief Michael Maglione said streams of creeping traffic had flowed to city streets to bypass the accident site, where 145,000 vehicles rumble in both directions on a typical day.

"We have police officers at every corner, but some drivers are making wrong turns, getting lost," Maglione said. "There's gridlock from time to time. There are just as many 18-wheelers here as there are little four-wheel cars." The fire sent billowing plumes of oil-fed flames above and under the overpass, he said.

"In my 33 years on the Fire Department, nothing compares to the damage I've seen in this fire," Maglione said. "That all comes about because of the location. If this fire is 100 yards to either side of the overpass, we have a really good fire, but the damage is such that in two days it's repaired and the traffic is flowing."

The intensity of the fire was so great that it caused the roadway to sag several feet and damaged steel girders that supported the overpass, officials said. Spilled oil that rose from the highway in a flammable mist fueled the blaze, Maglione said. The first firefighters to reach the scene reported that the bridge's 2-foot-thick girders were glowing bright orange from the heat, which Maglione estimated to have reached 1,800 to 2,000 degrees. "At that point," he said, "they did what firefighters do, and put heavy water on the fire." The flames were extinguished in about three hours.

The overpass was built within the last few years as part of an expansion and reconstruction of I-95. Chris Cooper, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, said the overpass met federal building codes. "I don't know that any kind of steel could withstand the kind of fire we had there," Cooper said.

Work began yesterday on the damaged highway and will continue 24 hours a day, Cooper said. Tests of steel on the northbound span will determine whether those lanes can reopen in the next several days, he said, but the southbound highway will be much more problematic.

Demolition of the southbound bridge was scheduled to begin last night. Materials were being brought to the site for construction of a temporary bridge before a permanent replacement is erected.

Connecticut officials said the accident is the worst transportation crisis since the 1983 collapse of the I-95 bridge over the Mianus River in Greenwich.

Three people died in that collapse.

Alan E. Pisarski, a transportation consultant based in Falls Church, Va., said the accident demonstrates the vulnerability of the country's highway system.

"I-95 is kind of like the

nation's Main Street, certainly for the Northeast," Pisarski said. "When something like this happens, it really just hits you between the eyes on how fragile the system is." Mayor John Fabrizi of Bridgeport described the event as "a simple car accident that turned into a fiery disaster," but noted that the massive detours have added "flavor to the local economy."

Jessica Rosenberg, a cashier at Lou's Butcher Shop, hawked refreshments to drivers as they crawled by in their cars. "We're just trying to take advantage of the opportunity and easy publicity," said the 18-year-old, who had a price list taped to her forehead.

Anthony Flint and Keith Reed of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Nicholas Zamiska contributed to this report.