PHILADELPHIA —

An elevated section of Interstate 95 collapsed early Sunday in Philadelphia after a tanker truck carrying flammable cargo caught fire, closing a heavily traveled segment of the East Coast's main north-south highway indefinitely, authorities said.

Transportation officials warned of extensive delays and street closures and urged drivers to avoid the area in the city's northeast corner. Officials said the tanker contained a petroleum product that may have been hundreds of gallons of gasoline. The fire took about an hour to get under control.

The northbound lanes of I-95 were gone and the southbound lanes were "compromised" by heat from the fire, said Derek Bowmer, battalion chief of the Philadelphia Fire Department. Runoff from the fire or perhaps broken gas lines caused explosions underground, he added.

Some kind of crash happened on a ramp underneath northbound I-95 around 6:15 a.m., said state Transportation Department spokesman Brad Rudolph, and the northbound section above the fire collapsed quickly.

The southbound lanes were heavily damaged, "and we are assessing that now," Rudolph said.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, who said Sunday evening he planned to issue a disaster declaration Monday to speed federal funds, said at least one vehicle was still trapped beneath the collapsed roadway.

"We're still working to identify any individual or individuals who may have been caught in the fire and the collapse," he said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Video from the scene showed a massive concrete slab had fallen from I-95 onto the road below. Shapiro said his flight over the area showed "just remarkable devastation."

"I found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died," he said.

Video below: Pennsylvania's governor talks about the situation with I-95 during a press conference

Mark Fusetti, a retired Philadelphia police sergeant, said he was driving south toward the city's airport when he noticed thick, black smoke rising over the highway. As he passed the fire, the road beneath began to "dip," creating a noticeable depression that was visible in video he took of the scene, he said.

He saw traffic in his rearview mirror come to a halt. Soon after, the northbound lanes of the highway crumbled.

"It was crazy timing," Fusetti said. "For it to buckle and collapse that quickly, it's pretty remarkable."

The collapsed section of I-95 was part of a $212 million reconstruction project that wrapped up four years ago, Rudolph said. There was no immediate time frame for reopening the highway, but officials would consider "a fill-in situation or a temporary structure" to accelerate the effort, he said.

Motorists were sent on a 43-mile (69-kilometer) detour, which was going "better than it would do on a weekday," Rudolph said. The fact that the collapse happened on a Sunday helped ease congestion, but he expected traffic "to back up significantly on all the detour areas."

Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Michael Carroll said the I-95 segment carries roughly 160,000 vehicles per day and was likely the busiest interstate in Pennsylvania. He said work would continue through the night to remove the collapsed section as rapidly as possible.

Shapiro said he had been spoken directly to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and had been assured that there would be "absolutely no delay" in getting federal funds quickly to rebuild what he called a "critical roadway" as safely and efficiently as possible.

But Shapiro he said the complete rebuild of I-95 would take "some number of months," and in the meantime officials were looking at "interim solutions to connect both sides of I-95 to get traffic through the area."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a Twitter post that President Joe Biden was briefed on the collapse and that White House officials were in contact with Shapiro and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney's offices to offer assistance. Buttigieg, in a social media post, called it "a major artery for people and goods" and said the closure would have "significant impacts on the city and region until reconstruction and recovery are complete."

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate the fire and collapse.

Most drivers traveling the I-95 corridor between Delaware and New York City use the New Jersey Turnpike rather than the segment of interstate where the collapse occurred. Until 2018, drivers did not have a direct highway connection between I-95 in Pennsylvania and I-95 in New Jersey. They had to use a few miles of surface roads, with traffic lights, to get from one to the other.

Officials were also concerned about the environmental effects of runoff into the nearby Delaware River.

After a sheen was seen in the Delaware River near the collapse site, the Coast Guard deployed a boom to contain the material. Ensign Josh Ledoux said the tanker had a capacity of 8,500 gallons, but the contents did not appear to be spreading into the environment.

"As far as waterways go, it's being contained, and it seems like things are under control," he said.

Thousands of tons of steel and concrete were piled atop the site of the fire, and heavy construction equipment would be required to start to remove the debris, said Dominick Mireles, director of Philadelphia's Office of Emergency Management.

The fire was strikingly similar to another blaze in Philadelphia in March 1996, when an illegal tire dump under I-95 caught fire, melting guard rails and buckling the pavement.

The highway was closed for several weeks, and partial closures lasted for six months. Seven teenagers were charged with arson. The dump's owner was sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $3 million of the $6.5 million repair costs, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

More recently in Atlanta, an elevated portion of Interstate 85 collapsed in a fire, shutting down the heavily traveled route through the heart of the city in March 2017. A homeless man was accused of starting the blaze. But federal investigators said in a report that the state transportation department's practice of storing combustible construction materials under the highway increased the risk of fire.

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Associated Press writers Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

PHILADELPHIA —

The driver of a tractor-trailer hauling gasoline lost control on an off-ramp and flipped the tanker truck on its side in a wreck that set it afire and destroyed a section of the East Coast’s main north-south highway, Pennsylvania's top transportation official said Monday.

In the first official accounting of a wreck that threw hundreds of thousands of morning commutes into chaos and disrupted untold numbers of businesses, state Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll said the driver was northbound “trying to navigate the curve, lost control of the vehicle, landed on its side and ruptured the tank.”

The driver was feared dead, and a relative of a New Jersey truck driver who has not been heard from since Sunday told The Philadelphia Inquirer that investigators had contacted the family in an effort to identify human remains recovered from the wreckage.

Pennsylvania State Police said a body was turned over to the Philadelphia medical examiner and coroner, but did not identify the remains or respond when asked if they belonged to the driver.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, speaking of those on the roadway and not the trucker, said he “found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died.”

Interstate 95 will be closed in both directions for weeks as the summer travel season kicks into high gear. The elevated southbound portion of I-95 will have to be demolished, as well as the northbound side, Carroll said. Motorists should avoid the northeast corner of the sixth-largest city in the country, transportation officials said.

The accident also disrupted the automotive route from Canada to Florida through the Boston, New York and Washington metropolitan areas, increasing Americans' dependence on air travel and on the interstate rail network.

Videos shared on social media showed a number of close calls around the accident, with people driving through the area as flames licked upward from the fire below.

The National Transportation Safety Board was on the scene Sunday night. Federal investigators have been collecting information about the truck and talking with the company and emergency responders in order to understand the sequence of events. They are expected to make a preliminary report within weeks.

The damaged I-95 segment carries about 160,000 vehicles daily, Carroll said. State police don't know if the driver was speeding, and no other vehicle has been found. Officials said they had been in contact with the trucking company, but they did not identify it.

Carroll said the highway span was 10 to 12 years old, had appeared sound, and officials blamed the damage on the heat of the fire, which took about an hour to control.

Video below: Shapiro speaks on the collapse at a news conference

Shapiro signed a disaster declaration Monday, saying it gives state agencies the ability to skip normal bidding-and-contracting requirements so the span can be repaired faster.

He said a flight he took over the area showed “just remarkable devastation.”

High heat from the fire or the impact of an explosion could have weakened the steel beams supporting the overpass, according to Drexel University structural engineering Professor Abi Aghayere. Bridges like the one that collapsed don't typically have fire protection, like concrete casing, he added. It could have been coated in a fire-retarding paint, but even then the beams could have been weakened.

“It just gives you time,” he said.

Among many transportation changes across the region, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority said it was operating three extra morning and late afternoon trains on its Trenton, New Jersey, line, and adding capacity to regularly scheduled lines during peak hours following the collapse.

The collapsed section of I-95 was part of a $212 million reconstruction project that wrapped up four years ago, state Transportation Department spokesman Brad Rudolph said. PennDOT rated the 104-foot span as in “good” condition earlier this year, with another inspection set for 2025.

Shapiro, a Democrat, said the complete rebuild of I-95 would take “some number of months,” and in the meantime officials were looking at “interim solutions to reconnect I-95 and get traffic through the area."

Joseph L. Schofer, a retired professor of civil and environmental engineering from Northwestern University, said a big challenge for PennDOT in quickly replacing the bridge could be getting heavy-duty steel beams of a hundred feet or more.

Ensuring the precise length necessary — either by finding the construction records or taking measurements — and finding a fabricator to make them could take time, he said.

“You can’t go online to Amazon and order it and have it delivered the next day,” said Schofer, who also hosts a podcast on infrastructure.

In California, a similar situation happened with a highway ramp in Oakland. It was replaced in 26 days, he said.

“Now that’s almost a miracle,” Schofer said. In Atlanta, an elevated portion of Interstate 85 collapsed in a fire, shutting down the heavily traveled route through the heart of the city in March 2017. It took authorities there 43 days to replace it, Schofer said.

In Pennsylvania, officials were also concerned about the environmental effects of runoff into the nearby Delaware River.

After a sheen was seen in the Delaware River near the collapse site, the Coast Guard deployed a boom to contain the material. Ensign Josh Ledoux said the tanker had a capacity of 8,500 gallons, but the contents did not appear to be spreading into the environment.

LAKE WORTH, Fla. —

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Dominic Alexandre, 23, said he prayed before his shift on Thursday, which is why he believes he is still alive after a truck nearly hit him while he was helping a driver on the side of I-95.

“It’s a miracle,” Alexandre said. “God's always watching us.”

The shocking video was captured the moment a gray truck comes barreling towards Alexandre and the female driver he was helping with a flat tire on I-95 in Lake Worth, Florida.

“I am very fortunate and very lucky out of the countless troopers that I know who were not so lucky,” Alexandre said. “They died. They got seriously hurt, injured, or career-ending events.”

Sister station WPBF reports a hit-and-run driver in a sedan led to this accident.

"There was an unknown sedan that collided with the rear end of the white pickup truck which swerved into the gray pickup truck and the gray pickup truck and the white pickup truck swerve towards my direction and the female motorist direction," Alexandre said.

The video shows the moment the trooper turns his head seconds before the truck collides with the SUV.

"I was able to hear the screeching sound of the pickup truck and glance to my left and I had a split-second decision to save my life or get hit so I ran to the right immediately as fast as I can," Alexandre said.

The woman who the trooper was assisting suffered injuries to her legs but is expected to survive.

"Assisting her with a flat tire would’ve called the road ranger to help her change the flat tire and I didn’t know that day would be a pivotal moment in my life," Alexandre said.

But the trooper said after the near-death experience, other drivers still weren’t following the move over law which requires drivers to either move over a lane for emergency vehicles or slow down to 20 mph less than the posted speed limit.

"Even after the situation happened there were still vehicles passing the speed limit or even faster than the speed limit right next to where the situation happened," Alexandre said.

Nine men are in custody in connection with a standoff between law enforcement and a group of armed individuals on Interstate 95 in Massachusetts, according to state police officials.

The standoff between police and the group of armed men has caused the closure of a part of I-95. The situation has also led to a shelter-in-place order for parts of nearby communities.

The situation began when a Massachusetts State Police trooper spotted two vehicles in the breakdown lane with their hazard lights activated on I-95 north at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday and stopped to offer assistance, according to MSP Superintendent Col. Christopher Mason.

Mason said the trooper observed the group of eight to 10 men trying to refuel a vehicle and saw they were wearing tactical-style gear. They were armed with a combination of rifles and pistols.

The trooper asked the men for identification and firearms licenses and when the men said they did not have them available, the trooper called for backup, according to Mason.

A group calling themselves "Moorish American Arms" posted a video on Instagram overnight showing armed members blocking the highway.

"At some point during this interaction, a number of those individuals alight into the woodline with their firearms. A perimeter was quickly established," Mason said.

"No threats were made, but these men should be considered armed and dangerous. We are asking residents in these areas to lock their doors and remain inside their homes. A heavy police presence will be in this area as well," the Wakefield Police Department wrote in a statement.

The interstate was closed in both directions between Lynnfield and Stoneham because of the standoff.

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"They are refusing to comply with orders to provide their information and put down their weapons," said Massachusetts State Police spokesperson David Procopio.

Two people were seen being taken into custody on North Avenue during a live report on sister station WCVB at approximately 6:10 a.m. Reporter Josh Brogadir said the men, who were wearing fatigues, were walking near a staging area.

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"While we were standing in that area, we saw some officers start to run. They came over here and they took these two guys into custody," Brogadir reported.

Procopio later confirmed the arrests and said the situation was continuing with the remaining members of the group.

At about 10:30 a.m., about nine hours after the incident began, Procopio confirmed that the remaining seven suspects had been taken into custody by the MSP Special Tactical Operations Team.

Procopio said state police would conduct sweeps of both the group's vehicles and the nearby wooded areas.

In Massachusetts, Interstate 95 runs from the Rhode Island line, around Boston to the New Hampshire line. Wakefield is just east of where Interstate 95 and 93 meet north of Boston.

Authorities say people in some areas nearby were being advised to shelter in place during the incident. Police in other areas advised residents to use caution and avoid areas of town near Interstate 95.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.