Construction Worker Gains Internet Fame After Sharing Videos Of Road Reconstruction Completed In Record Time

Jun 28, 2023

Road failures are a common occurrence worldwide. They result from various reasons, ranging from natural causes to geotechnical or man-made causes. Regardless of the underlying cause of a road failure, it can make commutes around the route difficult for road users. Road users will typically find another route to commute, ultimately leading to an unavoidable traffic situation. 

The impact of road failures on traffic cannot be overemphasized, as they can take anywhere from weeks to months to fix, depending on the severity of the failure. What’s more, many processes are involved in the repair, from the initial supervision to getting qualified hands, getting to work on the project and finishing up. 

This was the case in Philadelphia after the busy I-95 collapsed on June 11, 2023. The collapse happened after a truck carrying petroleum went up in flames on the highway, causing the road to collapse. In a press conference following the collapse of one of the largest highways in the state, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro gave an overview of the situation and a projection of the time it will take to be fixed. The governor said he expected the road to be completed in several months.

However, the I-95 was fixed in a shorter time than was projected. The road was ready for use less than two weeks after the fire incident. The repair's success resulted from construction workers who worked tirelessly during that period. One of those construction workers, Raul Figueroa, became a TikTok sensation after a video he posted on June 17, 2023, about the repairs went viral. Continue reading to get the details of Figueroa’s video.

After the I-95 collapsed, all hands, including engineers and construction workers, were on deck to get the busy route back on track in record time. Despite all the hard work involved in the repairs, a construction worker, Figueroa, took the time to share periodic updates on his TikTok account. In one of the videos, the construction worker talked to his colleague about the speed of completing the road reconstruction.

"They're saying we can't do this in three days, Charise," said Raul Figueroa on the video-sharing platform.

The 15-second video has garnered over 300,000 views, with tens of thousands of likes, hundreds of comments, saves and shares, making him a sensation on the social media platform. 

The construction worker revealed that he made the videos to include fun in the process and was surprised that it got so much attention. He also shared that he didn’t know that his video had gone viral until his colleagues pointed it out to him. 

Figueroa and other construction workers involved in the road reconstruction project worked the night shift from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. to ensure the road was ready for use.

"My squad is amazing!" he said. "We got Local 57, 556, 158, 592, you have all the locals out here building this together as a family, getting the bridge built up so everyone can get their lives back together," he concluded.

Thanks to Figueroa and all the hands involved, the road was ready in eight days, earlier than had been projected, ultimately ending the traffic suffered by commuters in that period.

What do you think of Raul Figueroa’s video? Do you think that he rightly projected that the road would be ready in record time? What do you think of the workers repairing the road in less than two weeks? Let us know, and pass this on to your friends and family!