Posted on 04/29/2007 3:41:40 PM PDT by Captain Shamrock
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed early Sunday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and erupted into flames, authorities said.
Flames shot 200 feet in the air and the heat was intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns. No other injuries were reported.
That's it. I couldn't remember the name when we lived there, let alone now.
I looked up the fire and it was very shortly before we moved back east.
A few years later we moved down here to Memphis and my folks, who were still living in the South Bay, came to visit us, that was mid-October, 1989. My dad and I were watching the pre-game stuff for the World Series when the earthquake hit.
By that time my brother and his kids had left the area but ironically my sister and her family were living in the south bay on a temp basis at the time too, so we still had folks in the middle of that. My nephew was actually out camping with a group of scouts very near Loma Prieta and there was a big search for them. They were found safe and sound with lots of supplies, so the "search party" made arrangements to bring in folks whose houses had been damaged and the scouts set up a temporary refugee center.
This event has the same unreal sense about it.
My first thought too. Great minds think alike...
It ios amazing the driver walked away.From www.insidebayarea.com:How did that happen?
OAKLAND -- After his truck exploded and melted part of a freeway, driver James Mosqueda thought he was dying as he walked with second-degree burns to his hands, face and arms nearly a mile to a gas station where he found a cab driver to take him to a hospital."He walked up to me and said, `I'm dying. Please, please take me to the nearest hospital. I'm burning, I'm burning,' " said Metro Cab driver Anthony E. of San Jose, who was pumping gas at the Arco gas station at the corner of W. Grand Avenue and Market Street sometime after 4 a.m. Sunday. The cab driver decline to give his last name.
Mosqueda, 51, was behind the wheel of a speeding tanker truck carrying 8,600 gallons of gasoline that crashed and exploded early Sunday, causing part of one overpass in the MacArthur Maze to melt and collapse into an interchange below. Traffic is expected to be disrupted for months.
After the explosion, nothing was left of the truck. But left behind was a 250-yard chunk of the crumpled interchange that was twisted into a mass of charred steel and concrete.
Mosqueda crawled from a passenger window, spoke briefly to a worker at the nearby East Bay Municipal Utility District wastewater treatment plant and then walked through the darkness to the gas station where he found help.
The cab driver said he first thought Mosqueda was a dirty homeless man panhandling for change.
"But then he got close, and the first thing he did was show me his hands," which were red and bubbling with blisters, he said.
The cab driver tried to persuade a hysterical Mosqueda to call an ambulance. But the injured man begged the cabbie to run every red traffic light to get him to the nearest hospital.
"He was in pain and he started crying. I tried to calm him down. I kept telling him, `You'll be all right,' " he said.
The cabbie said the cab's interior smelled of burnt hair as the two sped the 10 minutes to Kaiser Hospital on West MacArthur in Oakland.
"He kept saying,`No more (truck) driving for me. That's it. That's it.' "
At the hospital, Mosqueda tried to pay the $8 cab fare.
"He got out money and I said, `No, no, no I don't need it. Just go.' He's a lucky man," the cab driver said.
Mosqueda of Woodland, near Sacramento, was treated at Kaiser and later transferred to St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco for further care.
The crash occurred on the MacArthur Maze, a collection of interchanges on the edge of downtown Oakland about a half-mile from the Bay Bridge toll plaza.
Although the bridge itself was not damaged, the labyrinth of three converging freeways delivers traffic to and from San Francisco and includes some of the Bay Area's most congested routes.
No one else was reported injured.
Officials said a major public safety disaster was likely averted because the crash happened early on a Sunday.
Police said Mosqueda has worked for Sabek Transportation out of San Francisco for 10 months. Early Sunday, he was driving an 80,000-pound double tanker truck, about 10 times the size of a standard passenger car. His driving record was not available Sunday.
The CHP has set up a task force to investigate the crash and the trucking company, Cross said.
A Sabek company tanker was involved in a crash last June in Vallejo, which spilled up to 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel into two storm drains leading to the Bay. In that crash, the tanker overturned and the driver was not injured.
"The company is going to have some responsibility with this crash," said California Highway Patrol Officer Trenton Cross.
Police said Mosqueda's tanker was traveling from a refinery in Benicia to a gas station on Hegenberger Road in Oakland when it crashed into a guard rail on the interchange connecting westbound lanes of Interstate 80 to southbound Interstate 880 at 3:45 a.m.
Cross said an early investigation shows Mosqueda was driving too fast in the 50 mph zone as he navigated the curving road, but neither alcohol nor drugs appeared to be a factor in the crash.
Cross said there was "one huge explosion" followed by a few smaller explosions.
"When I first arrived my first thought was, `Wow!' It's unbelievable.' And what's even more unbelievable is that no lives were lost," said Cross.
Mosqueda, a divorced father of four children and two grandchildren, lives in a clean and well-maintained home in Woodland with roommate Cedric McGowan, 53. McGowan said Sunday he feared the worst when he heard about the explosion on the news.
"I pray to God that he's OK," said McGowan, who said he had planned to launch a truck company with Mosqueda.
The driver's parents, Conception and Alicia Mosqueda, said they had little information about the condition of their son Sunday but had spoken to him briefly...
Interesting to note that while driving home from a Sunday dinner in Alameda almost everyone was going 55 - 65mph vs 75- 80 on the 880 - 980 and 580 - I went to the site this afternoon to see - whew! reminded me of a war zone strike.
The driver (Hispanic) had been working for the trucking co. fo 10 months - I don’t think their insurance is going to cover the cost - Caltrans sez they have to do testing of the adjacent spans before repair work can commence - duh! - well OK - good engineering.
The Maze can be fun to go theu at speed when you have a vehicle that can take the side G-Force - this driver clearly did not have his company, his self, his family and the general welfare of the public at large in his mind when he wen through it with a big-rig - Papasmrf has much to say on this that is right on.
Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co. is a remarkable company, the are an ESOP, the are the largest privately owned heavy construction company in the USA, projects like this are right up their alley.
Check out their web site and see what they have done, http:/www.kiewit.com
The moonbats have already explained away this inconvenient truth.
The point I tired to make to a tinfoil hat liberal I used to work with is that it did not have to melt the steel beams just weaken them under load.. Blank stares..
—Kiewit?
Not Kuwait, I hope.—
Actually the pork funds will go to Okinawa. Jerk Murtha thinks it’s in his district.
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