Hang In There Fairfield County Commuters, It’s a Bad One

I knew it was bad when our traffic reporter texted "Accident - 95 Southbound in Norwalk - Road is on fire." We're never used to multi-day road closures, but one of our busiest highways has burned up from a tanker truck full of gasoline. Hang in there Fairfield County and NYC commuters, this is a doozie.

Interstate 95 will be closed in both directions for an extended period of time according to the Fairfield, Norwalk, and Westport Police Departments, who have all issued traffic advisories over the past hour. A tanker truck and vehicle collided around 5:30AM this morning on 95 Southbound in the area of the Fairfield Avenue overpass. This tanker was carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline, and I watched it happen live courtesy of the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

Ethan and I were watching the fire burn on the live cameras from the Connecticut DOT traffic camera website, we described the sea of white foam that firefighters were coating the entire shoulder of 95 Southbound with. The tanker fire burned for over two hours, clouds of smoke obscuring our view at times. Norwalk Police have temporarily closed down Fairfield Ave, Cedar Street, and Stuart in the area, with a multi-day closure being reported by the Connecticut DOT this afternoon for I-95 Southbound between Exit 16 and 15, and I-95 Northbound between Exits 14 and 15 for the foreseeable future.

How do you get around it? For passenger vehicles, the Merritt Parkway/Rt. 15 is an option, but I'd expect Rt. 1 and 15 to be extremely tight through the weekend, at least. 84 should be quite a bit busier, as should 87 and 287 in Connecticut and New York.