The Ohio Department of Transportation is working to open I-475 by Monday morning after a truck damaged the Detroit Avenue overpass Friday night.
Kelsie Hoagland, an Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman, told The Blade on Saturday that agency officials and chief contractor E.S. Wagner Co. of Oregon now see the work as two separate projects, the first focused solely on demolition.
“We haven’t even started to talk about what the long-term solution will be,” she said.
The damage was caused by a truck that inexplicably had its bed raised high enough to make contact with the underside of the bridge as the vehicle passed below it about 8 p.m. Friday.
Authorities have not yet released the name of the driver.
But Ms. Hoagland said there are no direct parallels to that incident and one that occurred on Feb. 10, 2023, when Lavoris Ruth of Miami Gardens, Fla., drove off after an over-height load being hauled by his tractor-trailer was believed to have damaged the Lime City bridge above I-75’s northbound lanes.
Mr. Ruth fled the scene, but another driver followed him and alerted police to his location in an off-freeway parking lot. No contest pleas were entered on his behalf in Perrysburg Municipal Court on Aug. 2, 2023, to operating an oversized load without a permit, operating a commercial vehicle while disqualified, and leaving the scene of an accident. He did not appear in court for his plea hearing or his sentencing hearing. He faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
That 2023 event required a $7.2 million repair.
Ms. Hoagland said the driver at fault for Friday’s damage did the right thing by stopping.
“This person did immediately pull over to the shoulder,” she said. “It was not a running or fleeing situation. It was much more of what you would expect someone to do.”
Unfortunately, though, the damage from Friday night’s event appears to be more substantial than what happened two years ago to the Lime City bridge, Ms. Hoagland said.
“It’s not an apples-to-apples situation,” she said. “This structure is much larger.”
No cost estimate for demolition or repairs has been made, she said.
The first order of business has been chipping away concrete to gain access and remove the Detroit Avenue overpass beam.
Crews are eagerly working around the clock in hopes of sticking to the plan for reopening that 14-mile stretch of I-75 at 6 a.m. Monday, Ms. Hoagland said.
Motorists familiar with the area around the Detroit Avenue overpass will notice an indefinite change in the traffic pattern, though.
The on-ramp will reopen, but the far right northbound lane — the longstanding ramp — will be blocked by concrete barricades.
“So the behavior of someone using the lane will be different,” Ms. Hoagland said. “There will be a little different of a feeling if you’re used to driving there.”
Ohio has experienced five bridge strikes this month.
“It’s not as infrequent as you would think,” Ms. Hoagland said. “They range in severity, but they’re not as uncommon as you think.”
In its social media posts, the Ohio Department of Transportation has urged northbound and southbound I-75 motorists to use I-475 as a detour for at least the rest of this weekend.
An update on the ODOT Twitter account on Saturday afternoon had few other details, other than to remind motorists that southbound I-75 remains closed at the I-475 split in North Toledo.
It also states that southbound I-75 south of the closure was open, starting at the Bancroft Street on-ramp.
Northbound I-75 is open to State Rt. 795.
ODOT also said in a tweet that northbound I-75 traffic is heavy north of Bowling Green.
First Published March 22, 2025, 8:53 p.m.
