Interstate 80 in North Jersey is back open after a sinkhole caused major traffic delays during the holiday weekend
Wharton: So, guess what? I-80 is finally back open in North Jersey! It was closed for four days because a sinkhole decided to make a mess of things right before the holiday weekend.
Repair crews were hustling day and night to fix the road. The sinkhole was huge, about the size of a four-story building, and it really messed up traffic for a lot of folks trying to get around.
They had to close off a few miles of the eastbound lanes, which meant some drivers were stuck in detours for over an hour. Not fun, right?
To fix it, they used a bunch of materials like stone aggregate and concrete to fill in the hole, then topped it off with layers of asphalt. The road finally reopened around 8 a.m. on Monday.
Fran O’Connor, the NJDOT Commissioner, praised the hard work of everyone involved. He said it was impressive how quickly they got everything back to normal, especially given the extent of the damage.
Oh, and the sinkhole was caused by an old underground mine in the area. Can you believe there are about 100 of those mines just in Morris County? Wild!
