COVINGTON, Ky. — Police are now investigating a fuel spill that shut down traffic on the Brent Spence Bridge Sunday morning.

Both directions of Interstate 71-75 are open after a tractor trailer carrying gasoline flipped just south of the Brent Spence Bridge around 11 P.M. on Saturday.

The resulting fuel spill led to traffic jams in Covington and caused another bridge to close.

But people were counting their blessings, as the incident could’ve played out much worse.

Besides the driver suffering minor injuries, everyone near the truck when it flipped didn’t just dodge a bullet. Covington Mayor Joseph Meyer said they dodged what could have been, quite literally, an enormous explosion.

“We are truly blessed that this happened [when it did]. Imagine something like this during rush hour on Friday,” Meyer said.

The truck, which was carrying anywhere from 8,000 to 8,500 gallons of gasoline, spilled about 5,000 of those gallons onto the expressway, and the city streets below, which were still being cleaned up Monday.

This shut down both directions of I-71/75 for about 12 hours. Northbound traffic was rerouted onto I-275 in Erlanger. Many drivers diverted through Covington’s city streets, and across the Roebling Suspension Bridge, which the city also shut down due to stress on its strict weight limit.

“It’s hard to believe that there could be a traffic jam in Covington at 1 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday morning, but believe me, there was,” Meyer said. “What this did was reinforce the issues that we’ve talked about so often in the past.”

Meyer was referring to the concerns Covington had previously raised about problems that could be created for the city during the construction of the Brent Spence Bridge companion bridge.

Two of those concerns are the massive traffic diversion into the city and across the Roebling Suspension Bridge that could result from the project.

“Accidents of this sort expose the suspension bridge to a tragic loss, and that’s an issue that we need to keep in mind as we’re going forward with the construction project,” Meyer said.

Now that the project is finally advancing, an updated footprint has eased many of those concerns, Meyer said, but not all of them.

“It’s also a reminder of how right we were to fight against tolls on the Brent Spence Bridge,” Meyer said. 

He referred to a KYTC study which showed a $2 toll on the bridge would lead 77,000 cars a day off the interstate and onto Covington’s existing city streets and infrastructure.

“If we can’t handle a little traffic diversion like what we had this weekend, that’s nothing compared to 77,000 cars a day,” he said.

Meyer said the incident was also a reminder of the city’s need for significant improvements to that infrastructure, especially, he said, at intersections like 4th and Main and 5th and Main, so that the city can deal with all the diversion during the five to seven-year period of construction.

“The construction of the bridge is going to be incredibly disruptive for an extended period of time. But we have hope that at the end, that the project will be a benefit to our city, and to our region,” Meyer said.

To see what was avoided with this fuel spill, one need only look back to Nov. 2020, when two trucks crashed on the Brent Spence Bridge. One of them was carrying a small quantity of a corrosive chemical. The amount of chemical was far below the federal threshold for being categorized as a “hazmat” load, and thus the truck was on the bridge legally. But the incident prompted a re-examination of hazmat signage around the Brent Spence Bridge corridor.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet moved to place “no hazmat” signs along Interstate-275 and I-71/75 to raise awareness of the hazardous materials restriction on the Brent Spence Bridge.

In regards to the fuel tanker that flipped, which was heading south, a KYTC spokesperson told Spectrum News 1: “In Kentucky, a restriction is in place for placarded hazmat loads driving on I-75 between I-275 and Ohio. Drivers hauling hazmat loads are responsible for finding approved routes to their destination. The Covington Police Department is investigating the incident. Law enforcement, not the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, has the legal authority to cite violators.”

Spectrum News 1 also asked the Ohio Department of Transportation about signage warning drivers not to carry hazardous materials.

An ODot spokesperson said, “I am not aware of any signage on I-75 alerting drivers to the restriction in Kentucky. When drivers haul hazardous materials, they’re required to know about any route restrictions before they go. Signs are simply one of many tools to aid with that. We’re reviewing the situation to see if there are additional measures that need to be taken.”

In the grand scheme of things, it may have been just one contained fuel spill, but it could carry heavy implications moving forward.