Months. Weeks. Days. Now.
A once-shuttered Downtown Los Angeles stretch of the 10 Freeway opened in both directions on Sunday evening, Nov.19 — a stunning development after officials just days before said its fire-scorched damage would take weeks to repair.
Just like that, the stretch, between Alameda Street and the East Los Angeles interchange, just after dark on Sunday began to fill up buzz with the hustle and bustle that Angelenos are used to on the key east-west artery in and out of the city’s core and beyond.
The California Highway Patrol declared the lanes open on the social media app X, formerly Twitter, just a tick before 7 p.m.
ALL LANES ARE NOW OPEN ON INTERSTATE 10 BETWEEN ALAMEDA ST. AND THE EAST LA INTERCHANGE.
— CHP_LA_TRAFFIC (@CHP_LA_TRAFFIC) November 20, 2023
“This is a great day in our city,” said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, joined at daybreak Sunday morning on the then still closed freeway by an all-star cast of elected officials — Vice President Kamala Harris, who has a home in L.A., along with Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, an L.A.-area native, and Caltrans District 7 Director Gloria Roberts — with the workers and crews who made their announcement possible providing the backdrop. The group declared that the mile-long section of the fire-scarred freeway would be open for Monday’s commute.
And as darkness fell, that promise was kept.
Even with Sunday’s opening, crews continued work repairing the freeway, badly damaged amid Nov. 11’s intense arson-set fire, fueled to mammoth levels by wooden pallets, vehicles and other goods burning beneath a roughly 450-foot span of the freeway overpass at the 1700 block of E. 14th Street.
Authorities on Saturday released photos and a description of a man they want to question in connection with the fire that damaged a part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles last weekend, and they are asking for the public’s help in identifying and locating him.
The man was described…
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