it could be months of brutal commutes for drivers in and around the Philly area after an elevated section of I-95 in Northeast Philadelphia collapsed Sunday morning when a tanker truck carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline burst into flames beneath it severing a main Expressway where an average of 160 thousand Vehicles Drive each day remarkably no motorists on I-95 when it collapsed were injured or died but the devastation and impact of spilled gasoline into drainage near the Delaware River is still being tallied Ted Goldberg reports the next several months are going to be very challenging just getting around lawmakers were blunt today about the situation on I-95 in Philadelphia for the past day and a half Crews have been working to clean up the debris from a bridge collapse on I-95 in Pennsylvania this is a critical roadway not just for Northeast Philadelphia not just for Philadelphia or the Philadelphia region for the entire Mid-Atlantic I-95 stretches from Maine to Miami I dare you to find a more densely populated 40 or 50 mile area around 95 then right here where we're standing leaders say the driver of a tanker truck lost control around this curve and the truck fell on its side before exploding as a result much of Philadelphia and New Jersey have been snarled in traffic as drivers figure out detours I think it's going to mean more traffic and more emissions in New Jersey so we're going to do everything we can to get out ahead of it as best we can again we couldn't have a better relate even though we don't agree on congestion pricing we're very close relationship with the U.S federal highway system the Department of Transportation and with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the truck carried 8 500 gallons of gasoline polluting air that was thick with orange haze just a few days ago from Canadian wildfires Rutgers Professor Robert lombok says it's more of a short-term concern than a long-term one they're incomplete combustion products that is a large number of different compound and some of them can be quite irritating and so people might have short-term effects if they were in a plume of smoke from burning gasoline from a tank or fire like that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro held a press conference yesterday and said drinking water hasn't been affected there was a very very slight sheen in the sort of Entry area of the Waterway it was contained with Booms that were put up there's no threat to anyone's drinking water and no threat to the water today Governor Shapiro issued a disaster declaration enabling the Commonwealth to use federal funds to fix up I-95 kickstarting a rebuild that will take a while to complete with regards to the complete rebuild of I-95 roadway we expect that to take some number of months we expect it to take that time we have a wonderful partner in the federal High Administration we expect that the Federal Highway Administration will provide the funding on an emergency basis the first part of fixing up this highway is actually demolition the Northbound Lanes collapse but the southbound lanes are still up even though they've been so compromised by fire leaders say they need to come down that should happen over the course of this week in Philadelphia I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news