A chemical leak shut down the Delaware Memorial Bridge in both directions Sunday evening, bringing traffic on a major East Coast artery to a standstill on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
The leak stems from a chemical production facility in Delaware, near the twin suspension bridges on a major route between Washington and New York City, the Delaware River and Bay Authority tweeted.
The bridge closed around 5 p.m. Sunday. Facility operators requested it be shut down, the authority tweeted. There is no timetable for when it will reopen.
The traffic on both sides was being diverted from the bridge to other crossings, including the Commodore Barry Bridge to the north, causing what the authority called a “parking lot” situation to disperse to other clogged roadways.
The bridge carries Interstate 295 on eight lanes over the wide southern reaches of the Delaware River between northern Delaware and southern New Jersey. Southbound traffic from the New Jersey Turnpike also flows across it. More than 80,000 vehicles make the crossing daily, according to the authority.
The Delaware Department of Transportation said the chemical facility causing the closure is on the Delaware side of the bridge. The state Division of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is on scene at the leak.
Lashrecse Aird, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, was stuck in the bridge traffic on her way home to Virginia from New York. The Thanksgiving commute usually takes her six hours, she said, but she had already been on the road for that amount of time and her GPS told her she had more than three hours to go.
A police vehicle and a hazardous-materials truck were blocking the bridge when she approached. She was at a standstill for an hour before being redirected, she said.
“We ended up taking 295 North to get onto 322, directing us to the Barry Bridge,” she said, “and then that is going to take us back south. Everyone is coming that direction, so we are still really not moving.”
