PennDOT Confirms Construction Crews Caused Black Ice That Led To Multi-Vehicle Pileup On Roosevelt Boulevard

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Nearly a dozen cars slid on black ice and caused a massive pileup crash on Roosevelt Boulevard on Tuesday morning. Now we are learning it was all preventable.

PennDOT calls the incident unfortunate. Route 1 southbound was completely shut down Tuesday morning, and they are working to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"It was a mess," Darlene Robertson, of Nicetown, said.

You saw it live on Eyewitness News this morning, a multi-vehicle crash. It was a pileup of nearly two dozen vehicles, causing gridlock.

According to PennDOT's records, the first crash happened just before 5:30 a.m. The road closure resulted in traffic gridlock in North Philadelphia, Nicetown, and Germantown.

"It wasn't too many people hurt," Robertson said. "One guy said his neck and back was hurting."

A spokesperson from PennDOT confirms a construction crew poured concrete over the Wayne Avenue overpass on Monday night, and with fresh concrete, it needs to remain wet for about a week and a half. They used a soaking hose where water slowly trickles out.

At some point, some of that water seeped through the barrier and onto the roadway - eventually turning to black ice. Hours later, a traffic nightmare ensued.

"Black ice or any ice is completely paralyzing to a vehicle. It doesn't matter whether you have all-wheel drive, four-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, rear-drive wheel, ice will cripple the vehicle. There is no vehicle that can navigate ice," Jana Tidwell with AAA Mid-Atlantic said.

PennDOT says crews will be pouring concrete twice more in the next week and they'll still have to keep it moist, but on Tuesday night they will shut off the weep hose and put down a foaming agent to ensure water won't seep out.

The goal is to have that section of the roadway done by December, and resurfacing on the north side will start in the spring.

The investigation continues, but for drivers involved in the pileup, PennDOT says the results of the investigation will determine if they are eligible to file a claim. If they are, it will be to the construction company, not PennDOT.

Eyewitness News spoke with someone at PennDOT who said that it's "possible" that construction or road crews sprayed water on the road, which led to it freezing overnight.

The investigation will determine if drivers who sustained damage in the work zone would be eligible to file damage claims, PennDOT says. If so, drivers would be filing those directly with the construction company.

CBS3's Alecia Reid contributed to this report.

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