Hot weather causes freeway pavement failure

Hot weather has caused two pavement failures on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis.

Sections of pavement have buckled, holding up traffic on Westbound 94 at Lowry Avenue and Eastbound 94 at 49th Avenue, officials from the Minnesota Department of Transportation said.

Concrete pavement expands in hot weather, but in some spots has little room to move, MnDOT spokesman Kevin Gutknecht said.

"If these expansion joints are filled with road debris and things like that, then the concrete has no place to expand, and it'll bump up against the other piece of concrete, and it can lift up," Gutknecht said.

Crews are out on the freeway fixing the trouble spots, Gutknecht said. But because of the government shutdown, MnDOT has only 50 emergency workers available to fix the roads, a tenth of the workers normally available for emergency repairs.

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