On an early Sunday morning in June 2023, a tanker truck filled with gasoline skidded on an exit ramp, tumbled over, and burst into flames just below one of the nation’s busiest interstates. The inferno that followed immediately severed miles of the East Coast’s most important artery, choking off a route used by countless cars and trucks. The fires were still burning on I-95 when Mike Carroll, Pennsylvania’s transportation secretary, told Gov. Josh Shapiro that, under the very best circumstances, he’d reopen the roadway in six weeks. Publicly, Shapiro and many experts posited that reb...