A stretch of Interstate 95 north of Philadelphia reopened early Thursday. The section was shut down for two days so emergency repairs could be made on a cracked support pillar, The Associated Press reported.

The repairs will permit PennDOT to make and install a new support column according to spokesman Charles Metzger.

"Time is on our side, so we can design a proper fix, and make sure it is something that can last well into the future," he said.

The major motorway reopened around 6:30 a.m. as Pennsylvania Department of Transportation supervisor gave the order to reopen the road. Just in time for the morning rush hour.

The crack in the support column was discovered last autumn by a structural engineer. Then the crack wasn’t that big, but as he came back to the area, the engineer decided to take another look. He discovered that the little crack in the 15-foot tall column turned into a 6-foot one. The major highway was closed shortly after that.

To repair the stretch of the highway, eight steel plates were welded to the beams under the road according to PennDOT spokesman Gene Blaum. The engineers used 16 jacks to lift the load of the elevated highway deck off the damaged concrete pillar.

Interstate 95 is the main highway on the East Coast of the United States. It carries about 190,000 vehicles a day as it parallels the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to Florida and serves some of the biggest cities in the U.S. such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Miami.