I-495 Bridge Closed Indefinitely Due to Tilting Support Columns

Crews work on the Interstate 495 bridge over the Christina River near Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, June 3, 2014, after it was closed due to the discovery of four tilting support columns. The closure created heavier-than-normal traffic conditions for motorists on Interstate 95, a major East Coast artery. The bridge normally carries about 90,000 vehicles a day. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

If you drive through the first state for work, your commute just got a bit worse. Okay, a lot worse.

Philly.com reports a bridge on I-495 in Delaware is closed indefinitely. Four columns that carry I-495 over the Christina River, a tributary of the Delaware, are tiled 2.4 degrees (or about 4 percent). Reports of the tilting columns came in Friday, but the bridge was not closed until Monday.

Officials say the bridge is considered fracture critical, which means the failure of one column could lead to the collapse of the entire bridge.

The situation may not be that dire. “Also, I want to communicate that we’re probably acting out of an abundance of caution in closing the bridge,” Delaware Transportation Secretary Shailen Bhatt told the News Journal of Wilmington. The paper did report the northbound boundary wall between the lanes had lifted about a foot higher than the southbound one.

The closure is expected to last through the day. There’s no timeframe for when the bridge will be fixed. You’ll have to take regular old I-95 for now.

[Philly.com | The News Journal]