Extreme Heat Caused Part Of I-77 To Buckle On July 4th

NOBLE COUNTY, OH — Extreme heat caused an Ohio highway to buckle, temporarily closing it to drivers on July 4. Images of the damage look as if a jackhammer ripped a horizontal line across part of I-77 in Noble County.

The interstate buckled from the heat, closing I-77 between Macksburg and Caldwell. Crews have since added cold mix to the cracking and re-opened the road. Permanent repairs will be made at a later date, the Ohio Department of Transportation said.

An ODOT spokesperson for District 10, Ashley Rittenhouse, said in a social media post that the agency had two pavement buckling incidents on July 4th. The other incident happened in Washington County, she said. That incident only closed one lane of travel.

Temperatures on July 4 in Noble County were in the 90s, but felt as if they were in the 100s. Humidity was over 50 percent all of Wednesday in the area, according to data from the National Weather Service.

Ultimately, crews were called in from their holiday break to repair the road. They were able to fix the buckling in less than two hours. The affected portion of I-77 was only closed from 5:51 p.m. to 7:23 p.m., Rittenhouse told Patch in an email.

Here's video footage of the road being repaired on the holiday.

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Photo from Ashley Rittenhouse, ODOT