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Interstate 80 Reopened After Rig Wreck

SOUTH CENTRE TOWNSHIP — Interstate 80 is back open near Berwick after a tractor trailer crash tied up traffic for more than four hours Monday morning. The...
COL 80 CRASH 9-8-14 PIC

SOUTH CENTRE TOWNSHIP -- Interstate 80 is back open near Berwick after a tractor trailer crash tied up traffic for more than four hours Monday morning.

The eastbound lanes of Interstate 80 were closed in that part of Columbia County while crews worked to clean up the roll-over.

Emergency crews and tow trucks lit up Interstate 80 in Columbia County in the early morning hours, all after a truck rolled over, blocking both lanes of eastbound traffic right before the Lime Ridge/Berwick exit (241).

This truck driver says he was one of the first ones to see it rolled across the road about 2:30 a.m.

"I don't know. I see it all the time on the road, so I don't know, not much. I just knew I was going to be here for a while," said tractor trailer driver Ljube Ilich.

State POLICE say the driver of this truck was traveling west on I-80 while his co-driver was sleeping in the back. And all of a sudden, the driver said he had to swerve.

"During hours of darkness a lot of people don't stay awake, it looks like he drifted off the curve, but his statement was he swerved to miss several deer on the roadway," said Trooper Wade Boston.

It took crews more than four hours to get this tractor upright so they could haul it off the interstate, and for some people traveling eastbound, that caused big problems.

"Just hoping to get to the airport by 9 o'clock, so they don't miss their flight. They're going back home, they're going to Dubai," said Dawd Daoud of Michigan.

These travelers were trying to get to JFK airport but instead, they waited as crews unloaded rolls of plastic material from the truck and worked to get it off the road.

"I guess maybe if we didn't make as many stops we could have avoided the accident but you never know with these things," said Daoud.

But for many truck drivers stuck in this traffic, they say sitting through this mess is just part of the job.

"Used to it, just hurry up and wait it, just comes with the territory," said Randy Jewart of Pittsburgh.

Drivers were detoured through the Bloomsburg area until everything was cleared up.

I-80 re-opened around 7 a.m., more than four hours after the crash.

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