Major interstate shutdown, bridge demolished after tractor-trailer crashes into overpass and moves it 6ft

A Georgia Interstate has had to be shut down for days and a bridge has been demolished after a tractor-trailer crashed into an overpass, moving it six feet and taking it off its support structure.

Authorities said on Friday that they hope to open Interstate 16 back up by next week, as workers haul away debris from the site of the crash that knocked the bridge off its support beams.

The Georgia Department of Transportation said crews worked through the night to get the heavily damaged bridge cleared away.

Interstate 16 connects large parts of the state to its coastline along the Atlantic ocean. Officials decided that the quickest way to get the essential road back open to traffic was to demolish the bridge.

A small part of the Interstate was shut down on Thursday, with detours having been set up to redirect traffic.

“Apparently, the tractor-trailer has a dump bed similar to a dump truck,” the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, Russell McMurry, said. “It appears that it was raised, which then struck the bridge.”

Mr McMurry added that the plan is to open the lanes going west, away from the coast from Savannah to Macon, as well as one of the eastbound lanes, by Monday.

Officials hope that all lanes will be back to being fully open by late next week.

“We expect that the full reopening of I-16 will occur by mid-to-late next week. Obviously, weather permitting, and lots of factors of complication of demolition. That is our target,” Mr McMurry said on Thursday.

Interstate 16 is the route used by many who travel from Atlanta to Macon and then towards Savannah and South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island.

The now-demolished bridge was located about 150 miles (240 kilometres) southeast of Atlanta, the Georgia capital.

The driver survived the ordeal, but it remains unclear why the back trailer was up, the Georgia Transportation Department said.