Commuters to downtown Los Angeles were urged to take public transportation or work from home on Monday morning as the city braced for major transportation disruptions after a huge fire engulfed a section of Interstate 10 after midnight on Saturday.
The highway remained closed between Alameda Street and the East L.A. Interchange, according to the California Department of Transportation.
“Losing this stretch of the 10 freeway will take time and money from people’s lives and businesses,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference on Monday morning. “Whether you were talking about traveling to and from work, or your child care plans, and the flow of goods and commerce, this will disrupt the lives of Angelenos.”
Department officials advised commuters to work from home or take public transportation if possible.
“We will need this to be able to relieve congestion and get people from Santa Monica to San Bernardino and back,” said California State Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin.
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Drivers urged to avoid local streets
Drivers using the interstate should stay on the freeway and avoid local streets, according to Los Angeles Department of Transportation General Manager Laura Rubio-Cornejo.
Those with destinations in the downtown area should use “surface streets,” she said. The department also deployed officers to downtown streets to direct the flow of traffic.
“It is critical that drivers heed the signs and traffic officer instructions in order to maintain the safe movement of people through the impacted area,” Rubio-Cornejo said.
Commuters should use the E, J or A Line Metro trains to access downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles County MTA CEO Stephanie Wiggins said. Metrolink also increased train service from Covina to the downtown area, she said.
LA schools chief: Expect delays ‘impacting a significant number of students’
Schools are open Monday in Los Angeles despite the freeway closures but schools downtown were expected to be affected, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Sunday. They include Ninth Street Elementary School, 20th Street Elementary School, Metropolitan Continuation High School, Inner-City Arts and Para Los Niños charter school.
Carvalho said some school bus routes were slated to change, NBC 4 Los Angeles reported. On Monday, he indicated effects could be widespread ‒ and last for a while.
“We expect some degree of delay impacting a significant number of students over the next days and perhaps weeks,” Carvalho in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We will continue to provide support to our school communities.”
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Engineers work overnight as repair process begins
Bass said the fire caused heavy damage but promised that the rebuilding plan would become “a new model for speed.”
“This was a huge fire and the damage will not be fixed in an instant,” she said.
Engineers worked overnight to assess highway damage and kick off the repair process, Omishakin said. “If you’re wondering whether or not there’s any activity on the site of the incident, as we speak, all through the night, through the morning, our maintenance and structural folks are there doing work.”
Omishakin also said authorities would determine in the next couple of days if a full demolition of the remaining strip of highway was necessary to fully repair the bridge.
“The shoring for the bridge is up. They did that all through the night,” he said.
The blaze broke out on an industrial stretch of the interstate that more than 300,000 commuters use every day, making it one of the most traveled freeways in the country. California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Saturday night.
No one was injured and no homes were damaged, officials said on Sunday, but 16 unhoused people living under the bridge evacuated. The fire may have displaced more, Bass said.
Bass said she expects to be notified of the results of an investigation into the cause of the fire on Monday.
Newsom said on Sunday that the California Transportation Department expected to complete its investigation into the cause of the fire by 6 a.m. on Monday. He said property owners were in violation of a lease and officials are in current litigation but did not disclose any further information.
On Monday afternoon, Eric Menjivar, a spokesperson for Caltrans District 7, said in an email to USA TODAY that the investigation concluded, “but the findings have yet to be released” by the investigators.
Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her on email at cmayesosterman@usatoday.com. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.