Stretch of SR 11 Highway buckles under extreme heat

The Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) had to shut down State Route 11 (SR 11) to just one lane July 8 after concrete panels under the pavement had buckled due to the region’s recent extreme heat.

Both north and southbound traffic had to be alternated in the one open lane as WSDOT crews worked to repair the road, causing backups and delays.

More from Chokepoints: ‘Convincing’ Good To Go! toll scam rears its ugly head

UPDATE 7:15pm: NB & SB SR 11 will continue to alternate south of Pulver Rd (MP 1) in #SkagitCounty while we fix a heat heave (or bump) that developed in the afternoon heat.

Please expect short delays and watch out for our crews. https://t.co/PBn8jDzTpc pic.twitter.com/mbos1njbfj

— WSDOT North (@wsdot_north) July 8, 2024

“We had traffic alternating through a single lane for several hours while our crews made a temporary repair overnight,” Madison Sehlke, public information officer for WSDOT, told KOMO News. “They will make a more permanent repair once temperatures cool.”

The stretch of road this affected is located just south of where SR 11 crosses Pulver Road outside of Burlington.

This recent phenomenon of Washington roads buckling and cement cracking under intense summer conditions has occurred more recently as of late, with WSDOT documenting what the department found during the Pacific Northwest’s record-breaking heat dome in 2021.

Here’s an example of how heat is causing some road pavement to buckle. Our crews are hard at work this morning fixing SR 544 in Whatcom County, trying to get it back open by afternoon. https://t.co/53XoBDBOMZ

— WSDOT Traffic (@wsdot_traffic) June 28, 2021

As temperatures fluctuate, the slabs of concrete making up America’s roads expand and contract. Highways and other heavy-use thoroughfares generally leave just enough room in between the slabs of concrete so the materials can expand in hot weather and contract in colder weather.

More on WA roads: Semitruck driver suffers serious injuries after crash

But when a region reaches previously unforeseen temperatures, more slack may be needed for the concrete. When the room between the slabs runs out, the road buckles and damages itself.

“When it gets really, really abnormally hot, like it hasn’t been that hot before in quite a long time, it expands so much that it runs into the adjacent slab,” Steve Muench, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Washington (UW), said, according to The Verge. “There’s no more room to expand, they just push up against each other and then they pop up.”

For roads made up of asphalt instead of concrete, a whole new set of issues can potentially arise as asphalt is made up of viscoelastic material, meaning it can soften in extreme heat.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.