Freeway Collapses After Fiery Crash

[hwbs]

By MARCUS WOHLSEN
AP
OAKLAND, Calif. (April 30) - Bay Area residents began potentially their worst commute in almost two decades Monday, a day after one of the region's most traveled sections of freeway melted and collapsed following a fiery crash


An elevated section of highway that carries motorists from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to a number of freeways was destroyed early Sunday after heat from an overturned gasoline truck caused part of one overpass to crumple onto another.

"I've never seen anything like it," said officer Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol. "I'm looking at this thinking, 'Wow, no one died' -- that's amazing. It's just very fortunate."

Authorities predicted the crash would cause the worst disruption for commuters since a 1989 earthquake damaged the bridge itself. The sight of a soaring freeway twisted into a fractured mass of steel and concrete was reminiscent of the damage from the Loma Prieta quake.

Even before dawn Monday, traffic in the area was beginning to back up earlier than usual


Standing near the wreckage Sunday night, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed that the state would respond quickly.

Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency to speed up cleanup and rebuilding efforts. He also authorized free transit Monday on ferries, buses and the rail system that takes commuters across the bay.

Transportation officials said it could take months to repair the damaged interchanges, and advised motorists to use public transportation in and out of San Francisco. They added trains to the rail system, and bus and ferry operators also expanded service.

"People are going to have to find a different way to work and back home in the evening, so we are asking them to plan ahead and do their homework," said Jeff Weiss, spokesman for the California Department of Transportation. "This isn't going to be fixed in a matter of days


Nearly 75,000 vehicles used the damaged portion of the road every day. But because the accident occurred where three highways converge, authorities said it could cause commuting problems for hundreds of thousands of people. State transportation officials said 280,000 commuters take the Bay Bridge into San Francisco each day.

Authorities urged motorists to take detours on surface streets but warned that drivers who chose alternate routes would still face tough commutes.

Though heat from the fire was intense enough to weaken the freeway and damage a 250-foot stretch of highway, the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns.

James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, went to a gas station and called a taxi, which took him to a hospital, Cross said.

A preliminary investigation indicated Mosqueda may have been speeding on the curving road, he said. Mosqueda was being treated in a hospital for burns on Sunday; efforts to reach him there were unsuccessful.

He was headed from a refinery in Benicia to a gas station near the Oakland airport when the accident occurred, police said.

The crash occurred around 3:45 a.m. on the MacArthur Maze, a network of ramps and interchanges at the edge of downtown Oakland and about a half-mile from the Bay Bridge toll plaza. Witnesses reported flames rising up to 200 feet into the air.

Heat exceeded 2,750 degrees and caused the steel beams holding up the interchange above to buckle. Bolts holding the structure together also melted, leading to the collapse, California Department of Transportation director Will Kempton said.

The cost of the repairs would likely run into the tens of millions of dollars, and the state was seeking federal disaster aid, Kempton said.

Officials said the accident could have been deadly had it occurred at a busier time.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said the accident showed how fragile the Bay Area's transportation network is, whether to an earthquake or terrorist attack.

"It's another giant wake-up call," Newsom said.

Associated Press writer Tom Verdin in San Diego contributed to this report.



link for video

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles...29135509990001

[suckseed]

Pictures and video:
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=1629

[hwbs]

[ottorocket]

I was on scene @ 5am and couldn't believe the intensity of the heat coming off the structure...just amazing. Wish i could have brought Rosie O'donell with me to show her what melted steel looks like.

[TJT]

But Rosie and her friends say a petrol based fire can't bring down steel???? Celebrities are never be wrong

[hwbs]

i drove by a tanker on fire on I95....you cant even describe the heat i felt for those brief seconds....thank God no one died...

[suckseed]

I know someone who's not going to make Employee Of The Month!

Can you picture the fine if there is one? The guy was speeding with a bomb on wheels, the dipshit. Probably eating Corn Nuts and listening to Sammy Hagar.

[Jamie Michelle]

Jet fuel burns in open air at 260-315 deg. C (depending on the formulation). Gasoline burns in open air at 471-560 deg. C (again, depending on the formulation).

Structural steel melts at around 1510 deg. C. Iron melts at 1538 deg. C.

In other words, gasoline burning in open air such as with this April 29, 2007 MacArthur Maze tank truck crash wouldn't have gotten anywhere near hot enough to melt the steel of the overhead ramp, or even to significantly weaken it had it been properly built and maintained.

These roadway works, e.g., overpasses, bridges, etc., collapse all the time, typically without anything hitting them or any fire. The reason is from shoddy construction and maintenance practices, largely due to corruption. Corrupt state officals and kickback-paying construction companies hired by the state often use inferior construction materials and practices while pocketing the difference in cost. And it's in the state's incentive to go over budget because then it can complain about being underfunded and needing ever more taxpayers' money; moreover, when roadway works do fail it just offers another excuse for requiring ever more funding. Unlike a customer on the market who can fire a construction company if he's not happy with them, and whose incentive is to make sure they're performing the best work at the lowest possible price, the state obtains its money from coercion, and hence the taxpayers can't merely fire the state.

Below are just a sampling of the many examples of raised roadway works collapsing. Of the 13 different incidents below, none involved fire and only two involved initiation by vehicle crash:

"Laval overpass collapse likely linked to steel bars inside, engineer says," James Keller, Canadian Press, September 30, 2006 http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=cp_n093039A.xml

"Former Quebec premier to head inquiry into fatal freeway collapse," Kate Lunau, CanWest News Service and Montreal Gazette, October 2, 2006 http://www.canada.com/components/pri...c-d6a5e8da2c55
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/st...c-d6a5e8da2c55



"Answers sought in freeway collapse," Kate Lunau, CanWest News Service and Montreal Gazette, October 2, 2006 http://www.canada.com/components/pri...0-2db9e2637270
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/natio...0-2db9e2637270

"Big Dig Ceiling Collapse," Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/specials/...ling_collapse/

"The Big Tangle: In the aftermath of the fatal I-90 ceiling collapse, a complicated legal fight has drawn in a phalanx of attorneys to defend pocketbooks and reputations. Such maneuvering has drawn comparisons to famed disputes in Boston history.," Sean P. Murphy and Scott Allen, Boston Globe, April 8, 2007 http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...gle/?page=full

"Woman Recalls Big Dig Highway Collapse 3 Years Ago: East Boston Driver Says Ceiling Gave Way," WCVB-TV Team 5 (ABC Channel 5, Boston), July 19, 2006 http://www.thebostonchannel.com/inve...84/detail.html

"Mass. Turnpike Authority Statement On 2003 Collapse," Mariellen Burns, Director of Communications, Massachusetts Turnpike Authority http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news...71/detail.html

"Part of overpass collapses, killing 3 in Colorado: Highway department investigating cause," CNN, May 15, 2004 http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/0...pse/index.html

"Crash Victim Identified, I-80 Traffic Detoured Near Big Springs," Nebraska State Patrol, May 24, 2003 http://www.nsp.state.ne.us/FindFile.asp?news=1&ID=802

"Update on I-80 Crash at Big Springs," Nebraska State Patrol, June 30, 2003 http://www.nsp.state.ne.us/FindFile.asp?news=1&ID=826

"Driver Freed 8 Hours After Texas Overpass Collapse: Toddler Killed In Collapse," September 8, 2002 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.o...f1b881ee3e57b8
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.o...bb7b52b0d110c/

"Toddler Dies Under Texas Overpass," Associated Press (AP), September 9, 2002 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/747074/posts

"No charges in overpass collapse: Negligence ruled out; absence of adequate support brace blamed for toppled Laval structure," Mike King, Montreal Gazette, July 11, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/200107180...1/5092600.html
http://home.ca.inter.net/~infocom/Actualites.htm
http://home.ca.inter.net/~infocom/Viaduc.jpg

"Cause of overpass collapse outside N.C. speedway sought: At least 91 hurt as pedestrian bridge buckles," CNN, May 21, 2000 http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/05/2....06/index.html

"West Side Highway Collapse Injures 3 Workers," New York Times, February 3, 1982 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...51C0A964948260

"End of the Highway" in "West Side Highway (NY 9A)," Steve Anderson http://www.nycroads.com/roads/west-side/



"Collapse of the Harrison Road Bridge Spans, Miamitown, Ohio, May 26, 1989," National Transportation Safety Board, Highway Accident Report, November 20, 1990, NTSB Number: HAR-90/03, NTIS Number: PB90-916203 http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1990/HAR9003.htm

"Collapse of New York Thruway (I-90) Bridge over the Schoharie Creek, Near Amsterdam, New York, April 5, 1987," National Transportation Safety Board, Highway Accident Report, NTSB Number: HAR-88/02, NTIS Number: PB88-916202 http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1988/HAR8802.htm

"Collapse of a Suspended Span of Route 95 Highway Bridge Over the Mianus River Greenwich, Connecticut June 28, 1983," National Transportation Safety Board, Highway Accident Report, July 19,1984, NTSB Number: HAR-84/03, NTIS Number: PB84-916203 http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1984/HAR8403.htm

National Transportation Safety Board, Highway Accident Reports http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/H_Acc.htm

[BeardedOne]

Query: When the burn temperatures refer to "open air", does that account for the form of the burn? Meaning would the temp vary significantly if the gas were in an open spill/pool as opposed to a concentrated volume or flow? An example would be an open gas breather, like a lab burner, vs. a concentrated flame such as a welding torch. Even the heat from an electric hairdryer, as concentrated in applications such as vinyl repair, is significantly higher.

We had a tanker crash and fire some years ago on a bridge of I-495 and it melted the asphalt and caused some warping of the steel that supported the road surface. Nature and science, working together, can confound known rules.

I see in Jamie's reference list a couple of links to the most fatal of the Big Dig embarrassments. I watched them plan and build that holy horror and drove through it ONCE. I'll stick to the surface streets, thenkyewverymuch. Bostonians interested in some quality workmanship need only walk a few blocks from the Dig (Only one block at the northern end) to the Central Subway (The Green Line's Tremont Street Subway) to see an engineering marvel (Of its day, 1897) that has stood the test of time without any serious structural mishaps in one hundred and ten years of continual service.

[ottorocket]

Did anybody notice that Prison Planet got really butt hurt because people are discussing this..rofl.

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may...ousfreeway.htm