Interstate 29 overpass on University Avenue in Grand Forks still closed due to heat-related buckling

GRAND FORKS — It wasn’t terribly surprising that one Grand Forks roadway buckled Saturday, city spokesman John Bernstrom said. But it wasn’t one roadway that buckled — it was three.

“Those three in one night?” Bernstrom said. “That was a little extreme.”

The Interstate 29 overpass on University Avenue was closed

Saturday when the concrete lifted up and created a buckle, making the roadway unusable for drivers. The closure, from North 42nd Street to North 47th Street, was still in place as of Monday afternoon, June 5.

Two other city roads were affected by buckling over the weekend, but remained open to traffic: the 3200 block of South Washington Street and the 3800 block of Belmont Road.

Road buckling occurs when moisture in the soil beneath a roadway heats up and expands, causing the concrete to break. It’s common this time of year, Bernstrom said.

Though he noted it’s been around 90 degrees for several days, Bernstrom said buckling doesn’t happen at a specific temperature.

“We have the cold and the moisture from snow, and then you get to the heat and (the roads) already have that moisture underneath there,” he said. “… You know, it’s tough. It’s tough on concrete to go from 40 below in the winter to 100 degrees in the summer.”

On South Washington and Belmont, the pressure caused the concrete to break, but it didn’t lift up.

“We’re able to put cones around those,” Bernstrom said. “You can still drive around them, so the road is still open.”

Buckling can happen quickly, and Bernstrom cautions drivers to be on the lookout for buckles that haven’t yet been barricaded by the city Streets Department.

“A road will blow up at night and then, unfortunately, sometimes we don’t see it until there has been an accident,” he said.

Bernstrom said he hopes this is the last of the buckles, but based on the forecast, he doesn’t think it will be. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures will reach into the mid- to upper-80s throughout the rest of the week.