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Fire, Fog Complicated Road Repairs

Tribune photo by JULIE BUSCH.

Crews work to repave Interstate 4 in Polk County on Thursday. The highway was reopened about 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

By RICH SHOPES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 11, 2008

Updated: 01/11/2008 12:15 am

A 14-mile stretch of Interstate 4 in Polk County finally opened to traffic about 6:30 p.m. Thursday, more than 36 hours after a horrific pileup that involved 70 vehicles and left four people dead.

The process to reopen the road from the Polk Parkway to U.S. 27 was slow and tedious.

The accidents happened before dawn Wednesday, and crews spent much of that day untangling and hauling away the vehicles. By nighttime, they were able to start the labor-intensive process of replacing 650 feet of highway, the scene of the most intense crashes.

They were forced to stop work at 3 a.m. Thursday when a blanket of fog, like the one that caused the massive pileup the day before, descended. Work resumed after the fog lifted at 9 a.m.

Transportation officials say the crash damaged the road in three ways:

First, the highway's friction surface course was deeply gouged. Second and third, its base layer - the three to four inches of asphalt that carry the weight of vehicles - was weakened by oil from a ruptured tanker truck and by fire from burning vehicles.

Oil and gasoline can weaken the petroleum-based material that holds roads together, and fire can melt asphalt, making the surface spongy, officials said.

"At a high temperature, it will soften the asphalt. If you were to walk on it, it would come up on the bottom of your shoes," said Jim Musselman, a materials engineer for the Department of Transportation. Even when it cools down and becomes solid again, "What will happen is that it oxidizes and that will severely age the pavement."

Wreckers removed the last of the mangled vehicles on eastbound I-4, just east of State Road 559, by 10 p.m. Wednesday.

An hour later crews were ripping up three lanes of the damaged highway. Fifteen workers were on the scene; 30 were there Thursday.

Throughout the day, transportation officials avoided saying when I-4 would reopen. At 1 p.m. they announced the highway would open later that day and didn't give the final word until about 6:25 p.m.

DOT spokeswoman Cindy Clemmons-Adente said workers could not predict how long the repairs would take: heating up the asphalt to 300 degrees, applying it to the surface and allowing it to cool down. Two layers were needed, in addition to white striping.

"You can't put a strict timetable to it," she said Thursday afternoon. "You don't want to give people a time and then pull the rug out from under them when the road isn't ready yet."

In the meantime, thousands of motorists were forced to take alternate routes. Most took State Road 60, State Road 50 in Lake County or U.S. 92, the main east-west route through Lakeland, Auburndale and Lake Alfred, said Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Trooper Larry Coggins.

The DOT estimates 75,000 vehicles a day use the 14-mile stretch that was closed to traffic Wednesday and Thursday.

"It's been bumper to bumper all day," said Jon Aramino, owner of Drifter's Lakeside Grill on U.S. 92 in Lake Alfred.

He was stuck in traffic for 20 minutes coming to work Thursday morning on the two-lane highway.

Business owners were hoping to benefit from the steady stream of traffic. Some enjoyed a bump in business, but most potential customers kept on driving.

Alicia DeLeon, a cook at the Clock Restaurant in Auburndale, said she's never seen so much traffic on U.S. 92. She started working at the restaurant nine years ago.

"It's been bad all day. People are coming in talking about it a lot. It's still pretty slow. Everybody wants to know what's going on," she said. "It's helped business a little, but it's making a lot of people late for work."

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or rshopes@tampatrib.com.

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