SCOTT DEPOT, W.Va. — After being closed nearly 12 hours to traffic Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the West Virginia Division of Highways was forced to create lane closures again on busy Interstate 64 in Putnam County for emergency repairs after Wednesday’s morning rush hour.
A trucker from Ohio died in the crash when a semi traveling westbound at Scott Depot crossed the median and struck his rig in the eastbound lane. Jeffrey Bidlack, 42, of Continental, Ohio was killed when his eastbound truck, which took the brunt of the collision, burst into flames. Two more tractor-trailers and two passenger vehicles were also caught up the crash leaving eight people injured.
“The biggest part of the damage was caused by the tractor-trailer that caught on fire,” said Division of Highways Spokesperson Carrie Jones. “That tractor was burning for hours and that was a lot of time you had something burning directly on the asphalt.”
The scorched pavement was left pock marked with holes and crumbling material. A private contractor was brought in to make emergency repairs Wednesday on the east bound lanes.
“It’s going to be alternating lane closures, it won’t be all closed at one time, but we just ask for people’s patience,” said Jones. “There’s some extensive damage so we’ve brought in a contractor to mill out and replace that whole section of roadway.”
The section to be replaced is about 260 feet of the intestate near the Rocky Step Road overpass.
The semi which started the accident was owned by Butler Transport. Putnam County deputies were able to talk to the driver, who was also accompanied by his wife on the trip, but neither could recall very much about what happened.
“She was on the I-Pad, but when my deputies first interviewed them 15 or 20 minutes after the accident, they were in a state of shock and couldn’t recall much,” said Sheriff Steve Deweese. “They’re going to follow up in 48 to 72 hours and see if maybe they can recall a little more about what happened to cause this accident and put this puzzle together.”
Besides Bidlack, who died, there were eight others injured in the multi vehicle pileup. Deweese said miraculously, none of the other injuries were life-threatening.
“That was pretty amazing for that type of crash and that type of speed on a controlled access highway,” Deweese said. “Usually in a crash of this magnitude you have several fatalities and several more traumatic injuries, but it goes back to how vehicles are constructed today with all the air bag and safety features which save lives out here on the highway.”
The detour off I-64 was a another headache from the start. Law enforcement was handcuffed to find any good option to keep traffic moving with I-64 completely closed.
“We did what we could. We had extra deputies out doing traffic control points and trying to keep it moving,” explained Deweese. “But we had an additional 13 wrecks in the county just due to the congestion. We had to pull off some of the traffic control points to go assist motorists involved in some of those other minor wrecks.”
Work to repair the highway is expected to be done Wednesday evening.