Interstate at washed out bridge in California to reopen Friday

LOS ANGELES – The main route connecting Los Angeles and Phoenix, which was closed when a surge of floodwater damaged several bridges spanning small desert gullies, is set to partially reopen Friday – far sooner than officials first estimated.

The California Department of Transportation had expected repairs on Interstate 10 to take weeks but announced Tuesday that it will be able to handle traffic again less than a week after the spans were damaged.

Travelers will still face delays, however, because just one lane will be open in each direction where one bridge collapsed.

The hardest hit bridges were over Tex Wash, a normally dry gully that filled with rainfall Sunday amid the kind of sudden, intense storm that can happen in the desert.

That fast-moving water severely eroded soil under the concrete that anchors one side of the interstate’s westbound span, making it unsafe.

The eastbound span fared worse, buckling onto the desert floor. One driver was seriously injured when his truck partly fell off the roadbed toward the raging water below.

I-10 typically sees 54,000 vehicles a day in the area of the washout, about 50 miles west of the California-Arizona line, according to Caltrans.