A day after I-95 collapse, investigators are probing the scene and commuters are plotting new routines

The driver of a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline lost control of the vehicle while negotiating a turn Sunday morning, causing the truck to overturn and ignite under an I-95 bridge, which then collapsed, officials said.

A day after the truck tumbled down an off-ramp and burst into flames, melting steel girders holding up the highway and reducing it to rubble, law enforcement officials were seeking a match for human remains recovered from the wreckage.

Pennsylvania State Police confirmed that a body was recovered, but did not name the driver or the company that owned the tractor trailer Monday. Relatives of Nathan S. Moody, a New Jersey truck driver, said State Police contacted them in an effort to confirm the identity of a driver who may have been killed in the blaze. The relatives said they had not been in contact with Moody since Sunday.

Isaac Mooney said his cousin Nathan started driving for the Pennsauken-based TK Transport Inc., which specialized in carrying hazardous materials, several years ago. Reached Monday, the company declined to comment.

A team of experts from the federal National Transportation Safety Board arrived on scene Monday and said they would publish a preliminary report in about two to three weeks.

As investigators combed through the debris, the breathtaking extent of the damage and the months of disruption ahead came into clearer focus. With one of the East Coast’s main arteries shut down in much of Northeast Philadelphia, ramps and side streets were closed or snarled, public transit was jumbled as commuters strategized new routines, and ripple effects could be felt miles away as interstate travel became a convoluted guessing game.

State and federal officials vowed to restore the roadway as soon as possible and pleaded for patience. Still, many questions remained about how long it will take to repair the busiest roadway in the region and the main connector between New York and Washington.

» READ MORE: The I-95 bridge was not designed to withstand fire. Few bridges are.

Gov. Josh Shapiro said Sunday that reconstruction could take months. PennDot Secretary Mike Carroll said repairs would be “as speedy as possible,” but that a design plan is still in development.

On Monday, crews moved wreckage away from the scene and began demolishing the southbound side of the highway, a process that will take at least four days, Carroll said. While it was the northbound side that buckled and collapsed, the southbound lanes were compromised by flames and could not carry traffic.

He said the bridge, which was 10 to 12 years old, was structurally sound before the fire.

The eight-lane roadway remained closed in the immediate vicinity of Cottman Avenue, and city police were diverting traffic through the neighborhood. Carroll acknowledged that the closure of a portion of the interstate that carries more than 160,000 vehicles a day would create obvious challenges for travel and commerce throughout the mid-Atlantic.

“We’re sensitive to that,” Carroll said. “We’d ask people to have patience and consider the SEPTA option.”

It will also be an expensive task. Shailen Bhatt, who heads the Federal Highway Administration, said officials heading up the reconstruction effort would get “whatever they need” in terms of federal support.

He said President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident and that U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is looking to visit the site.

“This is just a really all-hands-on-deck approach,” Bhatt said. “Any federal resources that are necessary will be made available.”

» READ MORE: What commuters can do after the I-95 shutdown

State dollars were also released Monday when Shapiro signed a disaster declaration, making $7 million in funding immediately available and lifting the normal formalities required to contract out the work. Lawmakers in Harrisburg began discussions about extending the emergency declaration longer than its initial 21-day window.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, both Democrats, toured the site Monday. Boyle, who represents Northeast Philadelphia in Congress, credited State Police with blocking the roadway quickly after the collapse, preventing cars from falling into a fiery and smoke-filled pit.

“While this is an awful shock to see and for those of us who live here, the next several months are going to be very challenging just getting around,” Boyle said, “we should recognize that on the most basic human level, this could have been much, much worse in terms of loss of life.”

The logistical headaches Monday were significant, though.

SEPTA scrambled to blunt the impact by increasing capacity on Regional Rail trains that serve Northeast Philadelphia and the northern suburbs as commuters turned to public transit to traverse the areas. The agency freed up rail cars by moving one Regional Rail line to buses, according to SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

Busch said railroad employees reported higher-than-usual traffic on the Trenton, West Trenton, and Fox Chase commuter lines.

» READ MORE: Watch: I-95 collapse cleanup underway

Eileen Bailer took the Fox Chase line to Center City Monday morning to take a circuitous route to get to a friend’s 96th birthday party in Collingswood. She initially planned to drive over the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, but the massive gap in I-95 required she change her plans.

“It’s stressful,” Bailer said. “There was all this back and forth about whether or not to cancel the whole thing. But she’s 96, so how many more parties is she gonna have?”

Others muscled through the traffic, which is being detoured through Northeast Philadelphia, jamming up side streets for miles. Steve Riley, partnerships and communications manager at Dietz & Watson, said trucks that went out Monday were “being cautious” as they navigated detours.

His own commute was “a nightmare,” he said.

“I come in from Newtown, Bucks County. It’s normally half an hour,” he said. “I started at 6:30. It took me an hour and a half.”

The closure threatened the ease of food distribution in and around Philadelphia, as many distributors rely on the highway to transport supplies to grocers and restaurants. Fred Bentley, owner of Bentley Truck Services, noted that some of the area’s largest food supply businesses are in the neighborhoods adjacent to I-95.

Even before the crash, Bentley said, traffic was so heavy through the neighborhoods that companies aimed to dispatch trucks early to avoid rush hours.

“Now,” he said, “we are all going to have to get up earlier.”

Staff writers Beatrice Forman, Ximena Conde, Gillian McGoldrick, Rob Tornoe, Jason Laughlin, Rita Giordano, and Joseph N. DiStefano contributed to this article.