Bridge collapses due to tanker truck fire

[MiataMike]

I just saw this on miata.net. This is when you know traffic is going to be a "MOTHER"

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5780113?nclick_check=1

http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/a...8&startImage=1

CHP says speeding led to crash, explosion and roadway collapse near Bay Bridge
Injured driver walks away from crash, takes taxi to hospital
By Leslie Griffy, James Hohmann and Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/29/2007 07:06:58 AM PDT



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A tanker truck exploded early Sunday morning and the resulting fire... (Noah Berger/Oakland Tribune)

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• <LI class=packageDate>Apr 29:
• Tanker fire spells trouble for Monday commute

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if(requestedWidth > 0){ document.getElementById('articleViewerGroup').styl e.width = requestedWidth + "px"; document.getElementById('articleViewerGroup').styl e.margin = "0px 0px 10px 10px"; } A speeding tanker truck with 8,600 gallons of gasoline slammed into a guard rail near the Bay Bridge early today, sparking an explosion and intense fire that collapsed the ramp from eastbound Interstate 80 to eastbound Interstate 580, the California Highway Patrol said.
Portions of the heavily traveled MacArthur Maze will be closed for weeks, if not months, causing the worst traffic disruption in the Bay Area for commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
CHP officer Trent Cross said the driver of the tanker truck crawled out of the passenger window, walked down the ramp to a gas station and took a taxi to a nearby hospital. He said James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, who had been driving for the South San Francisco-based
A map showing showing where a tanker truck exploded early Sunday morning, causing the collapse of a Interstate 580 connector ramp. (Pai/Mercury News)


Sabek transportation company for 10 months, was being treated for second-degree burns to his face and neck.
Cross said investigators believe that Mosqueda was traveling faster than the ramp's 50 mph speed limit when he lost control of the tanker about 3:40 a.m. He said officers are examining skid marks, debris and the damaged guardrail as they try to determine how fast the truck was traveling.
"If this had happened during weekday commute times, we would have had a very ugly incident on our hands," Cross said, adding that it was fortunate that no one was killed or seriously injured in the accident or subsequent collapse of the ramp. "The bridge is replaceable. A life is not." It is too early to know what charges, if any,
Mosquedo or his company might face, according to California Highway Patrol Commissioner Mike Brown. He said that the driver was headed from Contra Costa County but he would not say at an afternoon news conference where the driver was headed.
"He was fresh on his route," Brown said. "The investigation is only hours old."
By the time CHP officers arrived at the scene, Mosqueda was already gone. Oakland fire crews fought the 2,000-degree blaze until shortly before 6 a.m.
The fire was sparked on the lower portion of the ramp where Mosqueda was driving from westbound Interstate 80 to southbound Interstate 880. The fire was so intense that it melted the steel screws on the upper deck of the ramp, which was built in the 1950s.
Although the collapse has closed Interstate 580 approaching the Bay Bridge, motorists can continue to use Interstate 80 to get to and from San Francisco over the bridge.
On an average weekday, about 45,000 vehicles typically drive over the ramp that collapsed, according to Caltrans director Will Kempton. An estimated 35,000 cars drive over the lower bridge each day.
The west portion of the ramp is still connected to the guardrails, but the east portion has fallen onto the lower deck. Exposed rebar is twisted badly enough that it could fail, according to investigators who have been at the scene.
The lower deck is buckling, sections of cement have risen, steel beams are bent and the surface has been charred. From the looks of it on the surface, Kempton said, the concrete has become very brittle.
Ordinarily, it isn't that easy to knock down a freeway. But the fireballapparently erupted precisely at the Achilles' heel of the skyway - theunderside of the pier where all of the supporting steel girders are bare andunprotected by concrete or anything else, according to Berkeley civilengineering professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
"I think this was really the perfect fire, tragically," he said.
The freeway collapsed more or less for the same reasons that theWorld Trade Center towers did on Sept. 11, 2001. The steel supports werebaked at, and probably beyond, 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at whichsteel turns to rubber, said Astaneh, who studied the WTC collapse for theNational Science Foundation and also studied the MacArthur maze after the1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
"It's not to say the steel melted. Some portions may have melted,but the steel got soft, like rubber," he said. "When steel gets that warm,it loses its strength and cannot carry its load any more."
Caltrans has not yet checked the support columns to make sure they are still viable. Agency spokeswoman Lauren Wonder said the agency has demolition contractors ready to remove the damaged roadway, but that she could not say how long it might take to rebuild the ramps.
Kempton said that Caltrans officials are rushing to prepare an emergency procamation, which he expected the governor to sign early in the week. The declaration would allow the Federal Highway Administration to reimburse Caltrans for the cost of repairing the ramp.
"This is not going to be a cheap process," Kempton said, noting that bridge engineers were already working on the design efforts.
Kempton declared that he has already suspended the state contracting rules which require a competitive bidding process for public works projects. He said this will expedite reconstruction.
While he would not offer any kind of time frame for getting the bridge up and running, he said that it would be a quicker turnaround than in 1989, when the Cypress Freeway collapsed during the Loma Prieta quake and the Bay Bridge was closed for a month. Unlike then, when several roads were closed, Sunday's bridge failure is isolated and can be addressed immediately.
Wonder said motorists who travel from San Francisco to Fremont or the South Bay and use the Bay Bridge will need to take Interstate 580 east toward Interstate 980 in Walnut Creek to Interstate 880. She said that may be a quicker route than taking other routes out of San Francisco to that part of the South Bay.
State transportation officials advised motorists to take public transportation into and out of San Francisco. Oakland and San Francisco police will put extra officers on surface streets to help ease problems and congestion in the days to come.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Sunday he was in contact with the Schwarzenegger administration and already there are plans to "fast-track" reconstruction of the collapsed portion of the roadway.
"We're all going to do what we can to fast track reconstruction of the site," he said. "We also are going to work with the labor parties, they understand the urgency."
Newsom said the governor's office is looking at the model used by then-Gov. Pete Wilson to reconstruct damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake that closed I-5 north of San Fernando Valley.
"Unquestionably this will be one of the more problematic commutes in recent memory," he said, speaking about the short-term impact. It is too early to assess the economic impact from the crash, Newsom said, but he noted San Francisco's population nearly doubles during the work day. And even with fast-track rebuilding, he warned, "These things do not happen overnight. "And so there's going to be a lot of disruption and a lot of effort to redirect people on a more permanent basis."

[Treibenschnell]

Looks like it melted...

Will you cut and paste the story? I don't want to have to sign up for the whole damned thing...