ROSSFORD — The Lime City Road overpass on Interstate 75 is expected to open with a single lane Wednesday after being struck by an errant load on Friday morning.

Rossford City Engineer Todd Audet, who formerly worked at the Ohio Department of Transportation, said he expects that the eastbound lane of Lime City Road to be shut down for at least two months. The westbound lane will open Wednesday.

“I don’t want to raise expectation, but the goal is to have it open (Wednesday) if everything goes right,” Audet said. “Our law enforcement has been working with the department of transportation and other local partners to get traffic moving as efficiently as possible.”

Automatic sensor tunnel lights will direct traffic on Lime City Road.

The I-75 crash occurred Friday at 1:45 a.m. when the load on a northbound Peterbilt semi-tractor trailer combination struck the overpass. The truck was carrying the base of an intermodal container crane. The driver, who allegedly fled the scene, faces multiple charges.

“When these situations happen, it’s disruptive. On the day that it happens, and the road’s closed down, people expect to go a certain way, and when you can’t, that’s when you get all the backups,” Audet said. “When people learn that this is going to be down for a while, they learn new routes. We call it a calming of traffic. Traffic finds its level. Yeah, there’s disruption, but it’s not as great as in the first couple of days.”

I-75 was closed for almost 24 hours for cleanup.

“It was at such a height and such a weight that when it struck the bridge it destroyed that first plate girder, which essentially took out that whole lane, going eastbound,” Audet said. “They’ve removed everything that was damaged and everything that was touching the damaged part, so they can replace it and restore the structure.”

That plate girder beam will have to be manufactured. Audet said that materials have to be ordered, fabricated, get heat treating, then prime and paint. The new beam will be spliced in with plates.

“It’s not as simple as taking a beam off the shelf and welding it in its place. They actually have to go and do the engineering and replicate the previous beam and its connections,” Audet said.

He further explained that the exact execution plans will be determined by the contractor and approved by the bridge engineer.

“No two problems have the same solution and no solution will be exactly what anyone expects,” Audet said of his experience with emergency engineering situations.

While I-75 and the Lime City Road bridge are under ODOT authority, Lime City Road is in Rossford as a surface street.

Audet said he expects intermittent lane restrictions on I-75 for the bridge construction, trying to avoid high traffic times. He does not expect more than one or two lanes to be shut down.

“If they do, it would be for only a short period of time for what they call a rolling road block, in order to lift something in place. That would probably happen when the beam shows up,” Audet said. “They will do everything they can to minimize the impact on traffic moving on the interstate. Obviously, it is a major transportation route for this part of the country.”

Audet said that the bridge is ODOT’s financial responsibility.

“From a cash perspective, Rossford is not on the hook,” Audet said, but stressed that the city is both impacted and involved in helping, particularly from a police perspective. “(Lime City Road) connects the two major parts of the city, so it’s a major corridor for Rossford. That and Glenwood Road are the two major arteries. When you restrict one you impact commerce and people’s commutes.”

He said that the repair is proceeding at the fastest pace possible. With the type of construction there are a list of contractors pre-qualified to do the needed type of work. They get called and, if available, they start the work, without a bidding process, with everything, including cleanup, running concurrently at an hourly rate.

“Everyone shows up on site, pools their experience and comes up with a solution,” Audet said. “But because of the emergency it is, it is not cheap to do.”