Hundreds of thousands travel along I-85 in Atlanta every day, but those drivers will now face some delays. Last Thursday, a fire underneath the highway spread to combustible materials and lead to the bridge's collapse. Now in the process of a several month clean-up, transportation officials say it could've been avoided.
“There seemed to be some construction materials stored underneath of a bridge, they're still looking for the real cause of the fire, as far as I know but what had happened is it started to burn very quickly and very hot and that started to impact the concrete and the steel on the bridge,” said Maryland State Highway Administrator Greg Slater.
Slater received a letter from the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation about the incident. The commissioner also sent a warning to all state transportation agencies.
"Obviously this is a catastrophe of national significance. And we never would want something like this to happen again, and that's part of the message I'm sending to the other state DOTs, to let them know of this. Because I don't think anybody would ever have thought this kind of thing would happen. And so we're going to let this, you know, again -- joint review and investigation -- hopefully be lessons learned not only for Georgia, but the nation,” said GDOT Commissioner Russell McMurry.
In Maryland, there's no comprehensive list of what's housed underneath each of the 2,564 state-owned bridges, so over the next couple of weeks crews will be sent out to investigate.
“So what we're doing is we're looking at every single one, first seeing if there's any materials stored under there, if there are then what we're doing is we're going back and looking at what we have permitted, what we don't have permitted,” Slater said.
Inspectors have been advised to document then relocate any materials that could be flammable.
“I've been in this industry and we changed a lot when the bridge collapsed in Minnesota and now this fire issue. We learn from those things and move forward,” said Slater.
Every two years, State Highway inspectors physically inspect bridges to make sure they're structurally sound. From now on that inspection will also include checking for any materials that are left behind.
So far, three people were arrested in connection to the bridge collapse. No one was hurt. June 15 is the target date for completing the bridge replacement.
This week is also Work Zone Awareness Week. Last year in Maryland, six people died in work zone crashes. Transportation agencies are asking that people slow down, pay attention to workers wearing orange, and to use caution when passing a construction zone.
Follow Mallory Sofastaii on Twitter @MalloryABC2 and on Facebook @mallorysofastaii
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