Severe heat Tuesday stressed two slabs of concrete on I-215, causing them to buckle and prompting emergency repairs by the Utah Department of Transportation.
The concrete buckled on I-215 near 900 West in Murray, according to Carlos Ramos, UDOT station supervisor.When it gets quite hot, concrete will expand and move and a section of road can buckle along a weak spot.
The Utah Highway Patrol closed the center lane, allowing traffic to continue around the area, while UDOT crews worked for 21/2 hours until about 11 p.m. to fix the road, Ramos said.
Ramos said crews used jackhammers to relieve pressure in the road by cutting out an approximately 2-foot section of concrete and filling it with asphalt.
"It's a temporary patch," Ramos said. "What we'll have to do is go in and replace the two slabs of concrete that broke. We'll do that at the end of summer or in the fall when it gets cooler."