Imperial Highway Stretch Reopened

Imperial Highway, closed last Tuesday when a scaffold collapsed during construction of the Century Freeway, was reopened late Saturday afternoon, Caltrans officials said.

A mile-long stretch of the highway in Westchester had been closed since tons of wood and steel lattice work collapsed onto the highway just before afternoon rush hour. Debris from the 125-foot section tumbled as far as 80 feet, across all six lanes.

No one was injured, and safety inspectors have still not been able to pinpoint why the superstructure collapsed. At first, the general contractor and state inspectors theorized that it could have been jarred loose by a 5.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the central California coast at about the same time, but later retreated from that speculation.