Half a century’s worth of construction experience didn’t come by choice, says Rob Buckley, the third-generation leader of the family business, Buckley & Co. But when a tragic truck fire burned a section of Interstate 95 through Philadelphia last summer, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation engineers knew who to call.
Buckley, in turn, asked subcontractors and suppliers to reverse engineer a quick fix from scratch. “On Sunday, June 11, and within an hour of the I-95 bridge collapse, I received a call from Rob Buckley,” says Archie Filshill, CEO of Aero Aggregates of North America. “He explained what happened and shared his thoughts on how to quickly rebuild I-95 with glass foam aggregate.”
Crews constructed an embankment with mechanically stabilized earth walls between the bridge abutments. Other companies also quickly answered the call, offering emergency paving, median barriers, steel beams for permanent repair and even a jet blower to help keep the asphalt dry in the rain.
The interstate was reopened to traffic within 12 days. The permanent repair is scheduled to be completed this year.
“In our industry, you don’t know where you stand until an incident like this,” says Buckley. “The most remarkable thing was that basically anyone I asked to help us with this project was willing to step up.”
This included local, state and federal officials, all the way up to President Joe Biden, who offered support both financially and logistically. Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation “Mike Carroll came and never left for those 12 days,” Buckley recalls. “We had an all-star team. We had a goal and a deal.”
Buckley’s Power
Buckley’s influence was so strong that he asked President Biden not to visit the site, as the security detail and the helicopter would disrupt the work. Biden honored the request.
“So many public agencies and private companies worked together with urgency and cooperation in an effective response,” says PennDOT District Executive Louis Belmonte. “Yet Rob and the team at Buckley are the ones who put the pieces together and made it happen.”
Buckley says he started working in construction at age 15. “I had just about every job you can imagine,” he says, from cleaning out grease pits to obtaining seven crane licenses to operating dredges, tugboats and diving. Projects he worked on include the Epcot Center in Florida, the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge in New York State, San Francisco International Airport and rail work in Philadelphia.
His background with emergency work made him the prime contractor for I-95. “You have to learn to react very quickly,” he says. He points out that everyone else did too: “All the work was done with a handshake; my word is my bond. Everyone picked up the phone that Sunday. The contractors called and asked if I needed help.”
He adds wryly: “I have a reputation for being a bit crazy – it’s no wonder I ask people to do the impossible. ‘Drop what you’re doing and do it’. Not one person said no.”
For example, the Filshill company not only provided 8,000 m3 of aggregate, but also took responsibility for designing the temporary retaining wall. Filshill said, “We’ll see what we can do in two weeks,” Buckley recalls. “I said, ‘no, we need it tomorrow for lunch.'”
He adds: “We were asked to move heaven and earth, and we prayed to heaven, but we moved a great deal of earth.”
