CHRIS DORST | Gazette-Mail photos
A West Virginia Division of Highways worker uses a torch Monday morning on an expansion joint in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 64, just before the Fort Hill bridge, in Charleston.
Police shut down eastbound Interstate 64 near Exit 58 after a loose expansion joint caused more than 20 flat tires on the Fort Hill bridge Monday morning.A Kanawha County Metro 911 dispatcher said at about 7:30 a.m. that the South Charleston Police Department was shutting down the highway so crews could make repairs. Traffic was diverted at the Oakwood Road and Montrose Drive exits. At about 8 a.m., a dispatcher said the fast lane had been reopened.
Carrie Bly, spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Transportation, said expansion joints “allow the bridge to move but, unfortunately, sometimes they come loose.”
“This is the bridge that carries the most traffic in the state,” she said. “That much traffic takes a toll.”
Bly said expansion joints allow the bridge to contract and expand, which is necessary to handle changing temperatures and varying traffic loads.
“It has to be able to move with the traffic,” she said.
Bly said the loose expansion joint was located at one end of the bridge, at the abutment. She said expansion joints on that end of the bridge were last replaced five to six years ago.
She said expansion joints coming loose is a common problem and it cannot be attributed to faulty construction.
“This isn’t just a problem that is centric to us,” she said. “It’s something that does happen.”
The Division of Highways bridge department is conducting repairs. Bly said they would consist of removing a section of the joint and repairing with concrete.
The DOH announced in April 2015 that it would spend $18 million to replace bridge decking, put in new expansion joints and install a system to repel corrosion on 19 bridges and interstate ramps between the Fort Hill bridge and Brooks Street Bridge on Interstate 64. Drivers had to follow a new type of traffic pattern, a contraflow lane, while the work was completed.
Bly said the joint that came loose Monday was not one of those replaced last year.
