Eastbound I-94 reopens early from Dearborn to Detroit

Eastbound Interstate 94 from Dearborn to Detroit reopened on Saturday evening, four days after a fiery tanker explosion closed the freeway.

The freeway reopened just after 6 p.m. — 36 hours ahead of schedule, said Diane Cross, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Transportation.

"MDOT crews have been working 24 hours a day since it happened," said Cross. "It is such an important route so we pulled out all the stops."

On Wednesday, a river of flaming fuel from an exploding gas tanker destroyed the eastbound pavement between U.S. 12 and Wyoming while the right shoulder of the freeway at Warren was seriously undermined by the August 2014 flooding.

While it was closed MDOT maintenance crews did street sweeping, garbage pick-up and sign cleaning, said Cross.

Crews have been pouring new concrete between Michigan and Wyoming since about noon Thursday. Also, environmental crews were cleaning thousands of gallons of gasoline out of the freeway's underground drainage system and pump houses.

Westbound I-94 was closed at 9 p.m. Friday night between I-75 and the Lodge Freeway (M-10) so crews can install 10 steel bridge beams on half of the new Woodward overpass. It is scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. Monday, said Cross.

The overpass is part of the M-1 Rail project, a 3.3-mile-long streetcar line on Woodward between Larned and West Grand Boulevard.

UWatson@detroitnews.com

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