Heat buckles sections of Interstate 55 southbound
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Two half-mile sections in the left lane of Interstate 55 southbound between Hammond and Independence were closed Monday after the road buckled under continued “excessive heat,” state highway officials said.
The sections were closed about 8 a.m. Monday and are about 2.5 miles apart in Tangipahoa Parish, said Dustin Annison, a spokesman with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
One area is just south of the Independence interchange and the other is just south of the Tickfaw interchange, he said.
The road’s concrete sections, which normally expand as temperatures rise and have expansion joints to account for that, have buckled up 4 inches to 6 inches, Annison said. He said the road surface is uneven but has not cracked open.
“Sometimes, it just expands too much and the (expansion) joint can’t handle it, and the joint needs to be cut out and replaced, which is what we’re going to be doing on I-55,” Annison said.
The buckled parts of the highway will also be replaced, Annison said. Highway officials had been being monitoring the area since Saturday, he said.
DOTD officials said in a statement Monday that the repair work is expected to take about a week.
The left lane between the two buckled areas on I-55 southbound will remain open to traffic, Annison said.
State highway officials blamed the buckled highway on unusually high temperatures that have continued for several weeks in southeast Louisiana.
Temperatures in McComb, Miss., which is just north of Tangipahoa Parish, have had highs of 97 degrees or higher since June 17 and 92 degrees or higher since June 9, said Shawn O’Neil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office in Slidell.
The McComb weather gauge is the most accurate one closest to the area where the road buckling occurred, O’Neil said.
The normal daily high this time of year is about 90 degrees, O’Neil said.
The region may get a break by Friday, O’Neil said, when a 30 percent chance of rain is forecast.
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