Officials from the Maryland State Highway Administration finished patching I-70 and reopened all lanes to traffic after discovering on Thursday a 14 feet wide and 30 feet deep sinkhole beneath the road.

The agency closed both westbound lanes and directed drivers to use the left-hand shoulder or detour through Frederick, a city of 59,000 about 45 miles west of Baltimore.

SHA representative David Buck predicted the highway would fully reopen Friday morning. “It’s going to take us quite a while to fill the hole with rocks and grout,” Buck said, according to the Associated Press.

SHA crews spent much of yesterday filling the hole with stones and a concrete-like grout as traffic crept by on the left shoulder. "It's rare for us to deal with a sinkhole, and particularly rare on an interstate," Buck said.

All travel lanes reopened to traffic this morning after workers finished filling in the sinkhole, the State Highway Administration said.

Heavy rains, especially the ones occurring this week, can be blamed for this kind of incidents. They usually create underground voids, causing areas to sink.

Sinkholes also disrupted I-70 traffic in the area in October and November 2003, when several voids near the highway prompted ramp closures.

In the summer of 2003, a four-lane suburban road in Frederick was closed for six weeks while workers filled a sinkhole 12 feet deep and 32 feet wide.