Falling Concrete Closes Part Of Highway

Drivers in North Tulsa just had to look out their windshields to see evidence of the sad shape of Oklahoma roads. Part of a busy bridge crumbled, sending chunks of concrete crashing down. The News On 6's Joshua Brakhage reports now engineers are blaming the heat for the shower of cement.

"A big explosion of rock came out of the underpass and exploded in front of me on the pavement. A few smaller pieces hit me in the windshield and the front of the truck," Ken Poston.

Poston says a grapefruit-sized chunk of cement shrapnel missed him by only a couple inches.

"Yeah, it would have came through the windshield, no doubt about it," said Poston.

A four-foot hole opened in Highway 169 near Pine, sending cement from the bridge raining down on drivers on Pine.

"Scared to death. I'm like, my God, what's happening? I didn't know what was happening.  I'm still shaking pretty bad. It just shook me up pretty good," said Poston.

"This triple degree heat over so many days has really hurt this bridge," said ODOT's Martin Stewart.

Stewart says in the summer heat, problems like this are no surprise.

"When you have concrete and the asphalt there together will sit there and expand and shrink with the temperatures," said Stewart.

"Somebody's looking out for me to make sure I wasn't exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I do appreciate that," said Poston.

Poston has cracks in his windshield, but he's happy his life is still intact.

"I was just real lucky," said Poston.