Highway 15 reopens after pipeline explosion

The Missouri Department of Transportation opened Highway 15 Thursday morning, four days after a natural gas pipeline exploded in the area.

The speed on the highway was reduced to 35 MPH to make travel in the area more manageable.

“MoDOT is finalizing results of the repair to determine the integrity of the roadway and still investigating the extent of the damage before a plan to make permanent repairs is developed,” MoDOT Area Engineer Brian Haeffner wrote in an email.

“Early next week we’ll bring our core drill in. We’ll get a core of the pavement to see how deep the damage goes. And from there we’ll determine what is needed for a permanent repair,” Haeffner said.

Crews made temporary repairs to about 1,000 feet of the roadway that was damaged in the explosion.

The nearby Davis Fork Bridge was not damaged and passed an emergency inspection, MoDOT officials said in a news release.

The extreme heat and fire from the explosion caused the oil in the roadway to become “cooked” out, which caused an unstable driving surface with “damage of unknown depths,” the release said.

Some of the damages to the road included a “golf ball-like” surface with 10 inch holes. The surface of the road was still soft within that 1,000 feet, so MoDOT officials said the reduced speed will help safety until the road can be repaired.

MoDOT is working with the pipeline and a contractor to make permanent repairs to the roadway once weather conditions improve.

“Most likely it’s going to be milling out the existing asphalt and placing new asphalt. How deep or how much we have to do we’re not sure yet,” Haeffner said.

The pipeline, which exploded Sunday morning, is owned by Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co. Panhandle has an office with a Centralia address and supplies natural gas from the Oklahoma panhandle to Indiana and Ohio. Panhandle is owned by Energy Transfer Partners, which is headquartered in Dallas.

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