UPDATE: All lanes are back open on Gandy Boulevard.
St. Petersburg, Florida -- It was a traffic nightmare for many in the Bay area driving from Tampa to St. Pete over the Gandy Bridge for a day and half following a fiery crash early Tuesday morning. But drivers will finally see relief during rush hour Thursday as traffic flow returns to normal this afternoon.
Westbound Gandy was down to one lane as workers removed fuel-contaminated dirt and conducted environmental testing.
"We've had approximately 40 truckloads that have been trucked out, the next step is to bring in good and clean soil to fill those areas in," said FDOT spokesperson Kris Carson.
In all, 1,000 tons of contaminated soil and 25,000 gallons or contaminated water were removed and taken to the necessary facilities for disposal. Testing revealed no fuel had penetrated under the bridge wall.
"We do know we are going to have to replace a good portion of that bridge wall," Carson said.
RAW VIDEO: Fiery crash on Gandy
That could delay the entire overpass project set to wrap in fall of 2016, and drivers are already sick of it.
"Twitter's been calling it a parking lot lately and normally they reserve that for the Howard Frankland during rush hour," said Alex Mac, who drove through the mess Wednesday morning.
"I just started a new job, and this is my third day there, and I was actually late for my first time because of traffic today," said Ashley Rogers.
