The K-18 overpass bridge over US Highway 77 in Junction City is set to be imploded tonight.

Fire Chief Terry Johnson said that will be something closely monitored by local fire officials.

“It’s unusual to bring explosives into a community…so we take it very seriously, and we’re trying to monitor the situation and we’re watching the progress of the preparations to make sure that we’re not going to have anything that’s going to put the community at risk,” said Johnson.

The blast is tentatively scheduled for 8:00 pm.

JC Post has confirmed with local Emergency Management and Fire Officials that we will be able to obtain photo and video from a distance of at least 1000 feet. If the video quality is workable, JC Post will live stream the blast on Facebook live.

During the period of the actual demolition, US Highway 77 will be closed for a period of about ten minutes. After that detours will be in place.

The detour for northbound traffic will taking the existing US-77 off ramp for K-18 and then turn east on 8th Street to Rucker Road and travel northwest on Rucker Road to US-77. The southbound traffic on US-77 will turn west on Rucker Road to Spring Valley Road, travel southbound on Spring Valley Rd. to K-18 and then turn east on K-18 to return to southbound on US-77.

Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has estimated that it will take the contractor between 12 and 24 hours to demolish the structure, remove it from the site and have US-77 reopened to normalized traffic.