Blazes deprived man's home but left him kitten

He looked delicate and heartbroken. 

An elderly man clutched a cat up to his chest with a sad face on a snowy day. This touching scene happened in Turkey, after a fire destroyed almost everything.

İlhami Çetin Photo

Ali Meşe had been trying to cook on a wood stove but it suddenly exploded after pouring gasoline.  The flames were so big that it alerted neighbors to call firefighters for help.

İlhami Çetin Photo

Fortunately, Ali and his family as well as one of his cats survived and only suffered minor injuries. But the other cats of Ali didn't make it, neither did most of his hens.

İlhami Çetin Photo

Ali has always been a cat lover and lived with several ones before the tragic accident. Therefore, he showed such a moving moment when he found his cat after the fire.

İlhami Çetin Photo

Ali reunited with his cat after treament.(İlhami Çetin Photo)

Workers on Friday began tearing down a bridge over a Connecticut highway that was damaged in a fiery crash involving a gasoline tanker truck — a project expected to extend the traffic nightmare caused by the closing of Interstate 95 through the weekend.

A day after the crash, crews removed metal fencing on the span in Norwalk before two large excavators — one on each side of the highway — began demolishing the concrete parts of the structure. Bucket loaders scooped up the debris that fell on the highway and dumped it in containers that were hauled away by trucks.

Gov. Ned Lamont said the plan is for both sides of the highway to fully reopen by Monday morning's commute. He and other officials continued to urge drivers to avoid the area.

“And here we are more than 24 hours later. And that bridge is going to be down very soon,” Lamont said at a news conference in Norwalk on Friday. “The sheers are coming in. Lift off the final piece of this. Get the asphalt back in place. And hopefully ... we get I-95 going in both directions on Monday.”

The sheers are special heavy equipment that will be used to cut down the metal support components of the bridge beginning Saturday morning, officials said. That should take about 24 hours, then the damaged parts of the highway will be repaired by milling and repaving, said the state transportation commissioner, Garrett Eucalitto.

The crash happened at around 5:30 a.m. Thursday on the southbound side of the highway. The tanker truck, carrying about 8,500 gallons (32,000 liters) of gas, burst into flames under the Fairfield Avenue bridge after a collision with a tractor trailer and a car. Highway traffic camera video showed the massive fire engulfing the span. Officials said no one was seriously injured.

State police said Friday that the car driver was merging out of the right lane when he struck the gas truck, which then hit the tractor trailer in another lane and caught fire. The cause of the crash remained under investigation, and no charges were announced.

Traffic on both sides of the highway was being corralled from three travel lanes into exit-only lanes as drivers were detoured onto local streets around the crash site. Livestreams showed cars and trucks creeping slowly on the exit ramps. On Friday afternoon, the state Department of Transportation said the travel time was nearly 90 minutes for the 16 miles (26 kilometers) from the New York border to Route 7 in Norwalk on I-95 north.

Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and some drivers' nerves were frayed along Norwalk's Connecticut Avenue, one of the detour routes. Employees at local stores said it took them an extra 30 minutes to an hour to get to work, and they were seeing a drop in business.

“It's crazy,” said Marco Ortiz, a tattoo artist at Javier Eastman Tattoo Studios on Connecticut Avenue. “I’ve seen people beeping, trying to cut other people off, making faces, hand gestures. It's not good. You've got to be patient. What else can we do? It was a really bad accident.”

About 160,000 vehicles travel that section of I-95 in both directions daily, officials said.

John Blair, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, said the trucking industry group has been working with state police and the DOT to get the word out to truckers across the Northeast about safe alternate routes.

He said the association has had a lot of problems over the past 24 hours with tractor-trailer drivers who don’t know Connecticut well striking low bridges or taking down power lines on local roads as they try to drive around the closure. The group has been trying to get long-haul truckers to avoid that part of state.

“We are pushing them up north as best as we can,” Blair said. “We’re trying to get to them before they get to Connecticut and have them avoid 95 completely.”

The crash prompted the closure of Norwalk schools and significantly increased traffic on other highways and secondary roads. The major alternate route in the area, the Merritt Parkway, cannot be used by trucks because its underpasses are too low.

Jillian Mauro, a press aide with the Connecticut House Republicans, said she noticed many more tractor trailers during her commute from Danbury to Hartford, as well as fender benders with the stop-and-go traffic.

“There’s definitely a steady parade of trucks,” said Mauro, whose commute to the Capitol on Friday took 90 minutes instead of the usual hour. On Thursday night, she saw an unusually large number of tractor trailers parked along the side of I-84 as drivers appeared to be taking their mandatory rest breaks.

The bridge removal and road repairs could cost about $20 million, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. He and other members of the state’s congressional delegation will ask the Federal Highway Administration for emergency funds to pay all the expenses. Lamont has declared a state of emergency, which could expedite the funding.

The accident was reminiscent of a deadly one last year in Philadelphia when a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline along I-95 lost control and caught fire, destroying a section of the highway.

Thursday's crash also came just over a year after a similar wreck on I-95 in Connecticut in April 2023, when a fuel truck caught fire after colliding with a stopped car on the Gold Star Memorial Bridge between New London and Groton. The fuel truck driver was killed, and the southbound side of the bridge was closed for hours. The driver of the car was recently charged with negligent homicide.

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

In this photo made from video, a demolition crew begins work on tearing down the Fairfield Avenue bridge, Friday, May 3, 2024, in Norwalk, Conn. Workers have begun removing the bridge over I-95 that was damaged in a fiery crash involving a gasoline tanker truck on Thursday. The demolition is expected to keep both sides of Interstate 95 in Norwalk closed through the weekend. (WABC TV via AP))

This image provided by the Norwalk Police Department shows the scene of a tanker fire on I-95 in Norwalk, Conn., Thursday, May 2, 2024. Both sides of I-95, the East Coast's main north-south highway, were shut down following the early morning crash involving a passenger car, a tractor-trailer and a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons (about 32,000 liters) of gasoline. (Norwalk Police Department via AP)

In this image provided by the Connecticut Governor's Office, emergency personnel work at the scene of a fiery early morning crash that left both sides of Interstate 95, the East Coast’s main north-south highway, shut down in southwestern Connecticut., Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Norwalk, Conn. (Norwalk Fire Department/Connecticut Governor's Office via AP)

In this image provided by the Connecticut Governor's Office, emergency personnel work at the scene of a fiery early morning crash that left both sides of Interstate 95, the East Coast’s main north-south highway, shut down in southwestern Connecticut., Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Norwalk, Conn. (Norwalk Fire Department/Connecticut Governor's Office via AP)