Huge Beam Fallen from Truck Causes Serious Delays Around Hutch in Rye Brook [Updated]

Update at 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 26:

Route 15 northbound remains closed at the New York-Connecticut state line while crews work to clear the scene where a tractor trailer accident took place earlier today.

According to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, traffic will detour off exit 30 of the Hutchinson Parkway back onto  exit 27 of the Merritt Parkway.

The DOT gave no estimate of when the parkway would be opened.

The original report follows:

A large steel beam fell off a tractor-trailer at the bridge where the Hutchinson River Parkway turns into the Merritt Parkway around noon causing traffic delays in all directions surrounding that area, authorities said. 

Police are directing traffic off the Hutch, across King Street and onto the Merritt Parkway, Rye Brook Police Lt. Eugene Matthews said around 12:45 p.m. 

The on ramp to the Hutch southbound off King Street is blocked off but the north ramp is still open.

Authorities need to bring in a crane to remove the large steel beam that weighs about three or four tons, Matthews said. Traffic will be backed up for a while, so avoid King Street near the Hutch and the Hutch and Merritt parkways.

A White Plains family was driving north to Connecticut when the beam fell and hit the front hood of their car.

“It was like something out of Final Destination,” said one of the young men who was in the car.

“I thought it was going to come straight through the windshield,” his brother said. The family was thankful that they were not injured but they were a little bit shook up from the experience, they said as their ride came to pick them up from the scene around 1 p.m.

“If it hit the car in front of us…the woman had a baby in the back and it would have hit them,” said Sharon Field, the boys' grandmother. “That is what has me a little shaken.”