Police investigate after 2 vehicles were hit by falling objects on I-64

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - The St. Louis Police Department is investigating two incidents where chunks of concrete or large rocks crashed down on vehicles. Both happened in the eastbound lanes of I-64/40 at the Hampton Avenue overpass.

“I thought it was a body, like somebody had fallen off the bridge,” said Liliane Courtois.

Liliane Courtois said she was driving on I-64 around 9:40 p.m. Thursday night when she saw something out of the corner of her eye and then heart a loud noise.

“I just remember that something had fallen from the top of me onto my car,” she said.

Courtois said the falling object put a large dent in the hood of her car and shattered her windshield. Around seven hours later something similar happened to Bob Paulson.

“A large chunk of something flew across from my passenger side down to my driver’s side, bounced off my hood,” he said.

Paulson’s pickup was hit by an object around 4:50 a.m. He wasn’t sure if was a chunk of concrete that had fallen from the underside of the overpass or if someone had thrown a rock from the bridge.

In March of 2007, a walkway along the Delor overpass spanning I-55 collapsed. That bridge was built in the 1960′s.

The Hampton Avenue overpass was built in 2009 during a 2-year major rebuild of I-64. News 4 notified MODOT about the incidents and the concerns that the vehicles were hit by falling pieces of concrete.

A spokesman for MODOT said, “Our inspection showed no evidence it came from the bridge structure.”

News 4 went to the scene and found a number of large rocks on the shoulder of the eastbound lane, under the overpass. The rocks are similar to those found just off the roadway which are used to prevent soil erosion when it rains.

Whatever hit Paulson’s truck put a big dent in the front of the hood. And he knows the situation could have been much worse.

“Could have been right through the windshield right into my body, right into my head,” he said.

Neither Paulson nor Courtois were hurt. But Courtois said her car was brand new.

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