Frank Taormina was determined. The King of Prussia man had an order waiting at Szypula Bakery on Richmond Street for Easter blessing breads, cheese babkas, and the fried sweet cookies called chrusciki.

Highway horror show or not, he was not to be deterred.

His 16-year-old daughter, Paige, was riding shotgun when they entered the city along Henry Avenue, avoiding the Schuylkill Expressway. With traffic crawling on secondary roads because of the emergency repairs on a section of I-95, Taormina said, "You've just got to use your head."

Karen Klein of Drexel Hill let her car's GPS pick her route to the venerable Polish bakery, about a block from the elevated highway's cracked pillar in Port Richmond.

When Klein got close, she said, she hit the button marked "navigate around" to avoid the crippled interstate.

Not every customer was so loyal.

Bakery co-owner Connie Jesiolowska, 56, said business was off about 20 percent because of orders canceled by people who were afraid to get trapped in the traffic mess.

Ordinarily, the Old World-style shop is open only Fridays and Saturdays. But since Holy Week is the busiest time of the year, she and her staff planned to work every day.

For her, the I-95 trouble could not have happened at a worse time. Instead of a line of customers spilling out to the street, people just straggled in.

No preservatives are used in the baked goods, so unclaimed orders cannot be saved. Even before this problem, the economic side of the business has been tough. A year ago, a 50-pound bag of high-gluten flour cost $10.50, said Jesiolowska. Today, it costs about $37. "And that doesn't include the cost of dairy products, which have also gone up."

Slipping out of her flour-dusted apron, Jesiolowska headed for her car to make a delivery at a food mart across the river in Berlin. She planned to use the Betsy Ross Bridge.

And the return trip?

"Tacony, coming back, or the Burlington-Bristol," she said, naming the possibilities. "Not the Betsy Ross. Definitely not."

Hello-o-o???

Police Sgt. Bill Stermel could hardly believe his eyes.

Two lanes of detoured traffic were barely moving about a block from the broken pillar, and a city Streets Department crew, shovels in hand, had picked this moment to shut down one of the lanes to fill a pothole.

Rushing up to the scene in his white SUV with blue lights flashing, Stermel, a big man, had to crack wise.

"Maybe you haven't heard, but there's a little problem up there," he said, gesturing toward the stricken portion of I-95. "We need this lane. You're killing us here. Tell your foreman you have to go."

With that, the city dump truck, laden with asphalt and a chastened crew, was on its way, and the backed-up traffic on Richmond Street began to move again.

"Amazing," said Greg Gillespie, coowner of Richmond Books, a shop facing the scene. "That pothole's been there a month. Today, of all days, they come to fix it."

The welder's torch showered the ground with sparks that sizzled when they hit the rain-soaked pavement on Richmond between Ann and Cambria Streets.

Runoff from this elevated section of I-95 spilled through drain spouts and random holes in the highway decking.

Despite all the splashing, the welders kept at it, helmets on, faces masked behind black protective shields, as little by little, a cage of steel beams and girders grew around the damaged pillar.

About a block away, contractors hired by PennDot used a cherry picker to get close - about 30 feet in the air - to another deteriorated joint of the highway.

The intersection of Allegheny and Aramingo Avenues in Port Richmond was a major detour route. That's where Police Officers Mike Lutz and Dave Novak, both 20-year-plus veterans, ruled beginning at 5 a.m. yesterday.

They coaxed, cajoled and commanded a steady stream of drivers to keep rolling. For the most part, it was a smooth operation.

Novak, of the Truck Enforcement Unit, jumped in front of tractor-trailers that tried to come through. He pointed them to Roosevelt Boulevard so they could enter the city from the Schuylkill Expressway.

Some big-rig drivers were not amused.

But they said they had no choice. A bridge at Aramingo and Somerset has a clearance of just over 13 feet, too low for many rigs.