Transportation companies feel impact of I-10 bridge collapse

About 24,000 vehicles cross the Arizona-California state line on Interstate 10 every day. With the bridge washed out, it's causing a lot of delays.

Those delays impact thousands of commercial vehicles which make up 31% of the traffic on that stretch of the interstate.

For the past two days, Jolene Patterson has been a busy woman. She works as a dispatch manager for Stewart Transportation, she and her colleagues have been working overtime to help reroute truckers around the I-10 bridge collapse near the state border.

"I would suggest you go north to 62, take the 95 south, and catch the I-10 again," said Jolene Patterson.

"We're probably getting an extra 112 calls a day now due to the delay and the transit time," said Patterson.

Collin Stewart is the owner and CEO of the company.

"This will have a significant impact on our time it takes to deliver our freight to California, and from California back to Arizona," said Collin Stewart.

Since the heavy rain washed out the bridge Sunday near Desert Center, California, drivers are having to reroute hours out of their way.

The extra hours means extra gas, means more money, and some experts believe that could mean the extra charge could be passed to consumers.

"Well we need to talk to our customers and ask for some compensation to help absorb those extra costs," said Stewart.

For now Stewart says they're doing the best they can.

"We quickly had to let customers know our freight was going to be delayed, but that is what we do, we'll go around the detours and we'll figure out a way to make it happen," he said.

Officials have not said when they expect I-10 to completely re-open. One lane in each direction will open on Friday as part of a temporary detour.