One of the newest road structures in Jacksonville had to undergo emergency repairs because of erosion issues.
After a full day of construction, it’s open once again.
The left lane of the ramp from I-95 Southbound to Atlantic closed early Tuesday and opened for your morning commute Wednesday. The Florida Department of Transportation says there was some incident overnight Tuesday where a car apparently knocked in to a barrier on the ramp, moving it and causing a separation in the pavement. The problem got worse when heavy rain moved in.
“Washed some of the dirt out, and that created some of that dirt starting to cave in,” says FDOT Spokesman Ron Tittle.
Tittle says they used dirt to pack in the earth walls that make up the side of the ramp while concrete was laid over the separation. He says the earth siding is because the site is still a very active construction zone.
The ramp opened last month as part of the ongoing Overland Bridge construction.
“When they open them up, they’re safe. Sometimes, things happen and that’s when we need to close them down and make emergency repairs,” Tittle says.
Tittle says crews were able to prevent any further erosion from the heavy rain Tuesday.
“They placed some sandbags up there to divert that water because of the rain,” he says.
Sandbags are still in the area to continue diverting rain to help prevent another washout.
We’re checking with the Florida Highway Patrol to see if any incidents were reported on the ramp overnight. Tittle says because there’s likely nobody they’ll be able to hold accountable for knocking the barrier and damaging the road, the FDOT will likely absorb the cost of the emergency repairs.
Crews working on other portions of the Overland Bridge construction were able to quickly respond.
“They had to detour from the project a little bit, just to be able to make this repair,” he says.
He doesn’t expect that will impact the timeline of the project overall, however. The Overland Bridge construction is currently slated to wrap up later 2016/early 2017.
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