Tanker Explodes; (SF) Bay Bridge Connector Collapses

[Newsjock]

Source: KPIX

A tanker truck exploded early Sunday morning on the I-80 WB at I-880 connector ramp, which collapsed.

... CHP officers said the tanker truck driver survived and was hospitalized with second-degree burns. There was no immediate word as to any other injuries.

The Oakland Fire Dept. said the fire was finally extinguished as of 5:50 a.m.; firefighters had to contend with extreme heat in battling the blaze. Damage to the freeway was extensive and estimated to be in the millions of dollars, Fire Battlion Chief Mike Miller said.

Structural engineer John Coyle said the heat from the blaze would have been in excess of 650 degrees to compromise the integrity of the steel that supports the connector ramp.

Read more: http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_119083701.html

---

And from KRON:
http://kron.com/

CHP officials say it could be weeks or even months before traffic resumes normally on the transition from eastbound Interstate 80 onto eastbound Interstate 580 after a tanker caught on fire and exploded early Sunday morning causing the freeway to collapse.

Live video at http://nbc11.com

[Demeter]

1. Wow. I Used To Drive That Road.

No cause determined yet?

[zanne]

2. Terra? nt

[ohio2007]

4. Teamsta ? nt

[zanne]

8. Hamsta?

I know, I know.

[ohio2007]

22. My point; will the drivers experience be looked at not to mention the hiring practices

of the company he drives for. How qualified was the driver in his hazmat training.

Before screaming the tin foil terror conspiracy, I say look to the obvious first

[Up2Late]

39. My Question is, why did he stop the Fuel truck under an overpass?

Drivers have done that here in Atlanta too, same result.:shrug:

[RamboLiberal]

57. He wrecked the truck

So he couldn't move it.

[Zynx]

78. He flipped the truck. Not gonna be able to move that.

[EST]

3. So, if we assume that truck was filled with gasoline or JP4,

and that, with heating to 650 degrees, was enough to ruin a bridge, what's that say about the JP4 from the planes that hit the WTC on 9-11?

[Warpy]

5. It wasn't the fuel that did it on 9/11

The fuel caused an explosion and flash fire. What did it was what the jet fuel ignited: carpets, fabrics, plastics, paper, wood, and a lot of things sensible people don't want to think about.

Another difference is that the truck was burning in open air. The WTC fires were largely contained within the building, drawing oxygen from outside. That contained the heat and increased its effect.

That's the fire that burned long and hot enough to soften the steel.

[Pavulon]

17. What about the LS charges, I mean

the ones that left no chemical trace. No tell tale copper "stippling" from the jacket of that charge being used as a cutting torch.

Blah, It was a cruise missile.

I despise those threads and avoid them. But an engineering degree and 10 years in the field give me no "real" perspective.

[RC]

27. Pulling Oxygen in from the outside also cuts down on the Oxygen

getting to the fire so it burns cooler. Thanks for playing.

[hack89]

35. I thought the fire was on the inside?

or did I miss something as I watched those massive smoke plumes?

[Zynx]

77. No, it's called a blast furnace. See "blacksmith", "steel", etc.

[whopis01]

79. Blast furnaces used forced air...

The blast refers to the air blast being forced into the chamber. That is very different from the air being pulled into a burning building due to the updraft of hot air from the fire.

[Zynx]

83. The effect is similar.

Firestorms, such as crown fires and WWII Dresden, are essentially blast furnaces. Rushing air fuels the fire, it doesn't diminish or extinguish it at all.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Obviously this was a controlled demolition.

And that tanker truck was a hologram.

[karlrschneider]

21. It was hit by an airplane! Nobody saw one so that's what it had to be!

:P :evilgrin: :crazy:

[originalpckelly]

32. The truth is out there.

[ChazII]

48. Rosie

will have a comment, I am sure.

[Pachamama]

71. Yep, if the Oakland Coliseum collapses too, then she will have an interesting reference point!

:eyes:

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

64. the entire bridge didn't collapse

apples and oranges

[Zynx]

76. The entire area effected collapsed. Don't make ignorant engineering comments.

There is no mechanism to go beyond the supports that are straddling the area that's being heated, especially with massively reinforced support pylons like those found in the Bay Area.

The roadway beyond the area that was melted didn't even "know" anything was happening.

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

82. engineering comment or simple observation?

or are you just looking for an argument; if so.. have a nice day and good luck finding one

[GregD]

6. Next week's traffic going to SO SUCK

Can you imagine the traffic nightmare this will cause?

My mother in law lives in a high-rise condo right there. I can hardly wait to hear the reports.

[LizW]

31. Right you are.

This happened in Birmingham, Alabama a few years ago. A tanker exploded under an overpass in the main downtown Interstate exchange, and the overpass collapsed. Traffic was disrupted over the entire metro area for months due to the detour. I live in a suburb far out from the exchange and I could tell the difference the very next day. What a mess. I can only imgine what it will be like in a much larger city.

[Tom Joad]

46. Next week? How about next 4 months. or however it takes to rebuild this.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

9. SHIT!

I am up here in South Lake Tahoe and am set to head back home to SF today -- man, it is going to be ugly! East Bay traffic on Sunday into the City is already a big pain in the ass, this is going to make it impossible. San Rafael to the Golden Gate is also a paprking lot on Sundays. And I would NOT want to be comuting in from the East Bay for the next few months -- that is not going to be pretty.

Our overpasses have been extensively worked on since the Loma Prieta quake, including new fly-overs to the Bay Bridge -- I wonder if this is going to make the engineers rethink.

[schrodingers_cat]

11. HHNF...we take 680 when we come back from Tahoe to the East Bay

it will take you through to the Caldecott tunnel onto 24/13/580 at Berkeley/Oakland. Sometimes it even takes less time :-)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

15. Thanks for the hint!

I have been doing the old Hwy 50 route from/to Tahoe since I was a wee babe (40+ years!), and it is ingrained in my DNA by now. :D

Maybe it's time to look at something new. :hi:

[ocd liberal]

38. I always use that way too

It works! I used to live in Orinda and go to Nevada City all the time.

[Up2Late]

37. Have you seen the new "Traffic" feature at Google Maps! Very cool...

Here, I just crated a Google Map link with a marker. at this link: <http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?q=OAKLAND+The+westbound+Interstate-80&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&hl=en&om=1&z=14&ll=37.84097,-122.284355&spn=0.043041,0.080338&t=k&msid=113079982360069943979.000001123e808fa013800&msa=0>

Just click on the box on the map that says "Traffic" and it shows you the trouble areas.

Note: This works in most of the major cities around the U.S. too

[FloridaJudy]

68. Hey, thanks!

I'll have to e-mail that link to my sister who still lives in the Bay Area. Every time I go back to visit, the traffic seems to have gotten more horrendous.

I really miss BART, though.

[schrodingers_cat]

10. Unbelievable how many people in the Bay Area this will affect

That is the transit path for anybody who works in San Francisco, but lives in the Southern portion of the East Bay. The 'Maze' is THE main stransit switchover for the Bay Area. There is also a Warriors playoff game in Oakland today. This should get interesting.

[rodeodance]

40. it will affect them for months

[KeepItReal]

12. Not a word of it on CNN or MSNBC right now.

(eom)

[Mika]

14. They're trying to get the TERRA TERRA TERRA 911 911 911 tealking points from the WH right now. n/t

[KeepItReal]

16. MSNBC just did a 1 minute blurb about it.

Thousands and thousands of people are going to be inconvenienced, they think its no big deal?

[slackmaster]

13. As if the traffic situation wasn't bad enough there already - K&R

The video on the cbs5.com site is awesome. I know several people who use that connector every day.

Tomorrow morning's commute is going to REALLY suck. There's no easy way around that.

[schrodingers_cat]

19. The KRON 4 reporter that was on about an hour ago

sounded like he had spent Saturday night at the bar, and hadn't quite sobered up yet. I love that little station, it's like 'the little train that could', but I couldn't bear to listen to him. The newscasters at the station had to repeat their questions to him.
The NBC station is giving better comprehensive coverage.

[Tom Joad]

52. I saw that it was reporting this for several hours non-stop this morning

I don't know when they stopped. When they do that, they just repeat things over and over endlessly.

[zanne]

18. Still nothing on the CNN website.

You'd think they'd be all over this thing by now. Very strange.

[slackmaster]

20. CNN Web page has a video link now

http://www.cnn.com

[zanne]

24. Thanks, Slackmaster.

Haven't heard the word "terror" yet.

[krispos42]

23. "The Enemy Within" by Larry Bond... this was the first terrorist attack

on us by Iran. Terrorists jack a tractor-trailer full of gasoline and wire it full of explosives. A brainwashed Muslim suicide bomber, in his 20's, takes the truck onto the Golden Gate during morning rush. Two more terrorists escort the truck in a car until the last exit to the bridge, gunning down a CHP officer that tries to pull the truck over. The terrorists flee off the last exit, the suicide terrorist stops the truck in the middle of the span and blows himself and the truck up in a huge fireball.

We strike back hard at Iran with cruise missiles. An Iranian general gets so fustrated with the uselessness of the mullah's support of terrorism he stages a coup and drastically reduces the power of the Islamic fundamentalists and wipes out the religious terrorist training camps in his country with armored battalions.

Ironically, he becomes a bigger supporter of terrorism against the US so that we become distracted while he plots to invade Saudi Arabia. But the terrorism is not the 'God is Great! *boom*' kind, it's the 'lets start a race war and rip apart America's social fabric' kind. And it works.

[ohio2007]

26. Maybe Larry Bond need a one way ticket to GITMO ?

LOL
I can't see the Navy launching cruise missiles if the Nimitz freeway may be in harms way due to a weekend traffic accident.

..unless a dirty bomb goes off in a city that declared itself a "nuclear free zone"



....... "Lightning" sparks blast, fire at oil refinery

A tank fire sparked by lightning burns at the Wynnewood Refinery in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, Friday.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/28/tanker.fire.ap/index.html


riiiiight....only lightening.......

LOL
end tin foil hat screed

[krispos42]

41. We'll see who gets blamed for it

Maybe some terra-ists put a bomb in the tanker truck while it was parked at a truck stop!

Larry Bond wrote that book a decade ago. I'm re-reading it now.

[jollyreaper2112]

73. novel was good but disappointing

The Iranian general had a lot of potential as a character but Bond went with playing him conventional. He was very interesting up until the point where he took over Iran. After that point, the whole thing with terrorizing the US didn't make as much sense. It was out of character for how he was portrayed up to that point. And the resolution of the story, of course, was like an unrealistic action movie. What would have been more interesting is if the guy ended up in more of a Chavez situation, someone who manages to seriously piss off important people getting into power. Islamic hardliners are furious and want to retake the country. The general abrogates and revises oil contracts with western companies, pissing off the money people. And the US is concerned about what this means for the security of the Middle East. So then his college friend who works for the US military, the main character of the original novel, would be torn between feelings of loyalty for his friend and concerns over what the guy might be planning. And the general might even ask him to work as a consultant for the country, helping to secure it against religious terror. He could even operate counter-terror groups in other countries and cause even more of a rukus.

So many different options available for that story, so sad that it ended conventionally.

[Mz Pip]

25. So much for my

easy trip to pick up friends at the Oakland Airport tonight. Ugh. It's city street time.

Coincidentally, this is the same part of the freeway that collapsed dduring the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It took over 10 years to rebuild it. Hope it doesn't take that long this time.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[loudsue]

28. They need to do more than rebuild it...they need to enlarge it.

Traffic up there is a mess MOST of the time. And every day.

:kick::kick::kick:

[hogwyld]

84. Better yet, why don't the people

Use the amazing public transport that's available? This is an opportunity for the entire "eco friendly" Bay Area to lead the U.S. by example.

[NV Whino]

30. Go 680 to the airport

Not that that route is going to be smooth going with everybody else using it, but it will get you to the airport.

[EFerrari]

43. I thought they didn't rebuild that death trap. I used to drive around

it whenever I could.

[beltanefauve]

29. I'd like to see

BART add more cars and run 24 hours.

[dogfacedboy]

33. Phelps will call this

"a punishment from Gawd fer allowin' all them homasexyals to live there."

[Arugula Latte]

34. Oh Gawd ... Traffic sucks there under the best circumstances!

I really feel for the commuters, having been an S.F.-to East Bay driver myself back in the day ...

[Up2Late]

36. New Updated pictures and video at Channel 11 News

<http://www.nbc11.com/news/13217764/detail.html?dl=mainclick#>

<http://www.nbc11.com/news/13217764/detail.html?dl=mainclick>

<http://www.nbc11.com/index.html>

[Renew Deal]

42. A similar thing happened in NJ a few years ago.

They had to build a parallel bridge while the original was being fixed. God only knows who's going to pay for this.

[ohio2007]

44. Asleep at the wheel ?

As an oil tanker collided with a pylon, a major freeway collapsed in Northern California

http://www.yahoo.com/s/569047


driver walks away

.....
No other injuries were reported, which officials said was only possible because the accident happened so early on a Sunday morning. The truck driver took a taxi to a nearby hospital, Officer Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol said.

....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070429/ap_on_re_us/highway_collapse_9

so..... whats the truckers name?

[Strelnikov_]

49. Mud n/t

[ohio2007]

54. Mud + speeding + rookie licensed driver = recipe for disaster

Wonder what his last job was prior to getting his license.

[kurth]

50. James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland

CHP officer Trent Cross said officers believe the driver of the tanker truck was going faster than the 50 mph speed limit on the connector ramp between I-80 and I-880 when he lost control at 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.

He said James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, 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 was later transferred to a hospital in San Francisco for treatment.

Cross said Mosqueda had been licensed to drive the truck for 10 months. He works for the South San Francisco-based Sabek transportation company, and is being treated for second-degree burns to his face and neck.

"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," he said.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5780891

[ohio2007]

53. Mosqueda had been licensed to drive the truck for 10 months. eom

[schrodingers_cat]

45. kick

:kick:

[jgraz]

47. I just drove down 80 from Berkeley to the Bay Bridge

1 hour from the University on-ramp to the maze. At 3 pm on a Sunday. :banghead:

BTW, the 580 exchange looks like a set from War of the Worlds.

Edit: Also, just getting out of Berkeley was a nightmare. The city has only so many ways to "empty out". Take out 580 and the whole thing basically floods with traffic.

Telecommuting here I come, er..stay.

[Tom Joad]

51. For our friends around the rest of the nation. Weekend traffic is often

not that much different than weekday days.

But, yes, this is going to make things much worse.

[sakabatou]

55. HOLY SHIT

O_O

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

56. Fire alone can't destroy standing structures and melt the steel beams.....Oh wait wrong forum.

:evilgrin:

[WoodrowFan]

81. LOL!

:spank:

[TechBear_Seattle]

58. Fiery crash collapses Bay Area freeway

Source: Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. - A gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Sunday, creating such intense heat that a stretch of highway melted and collapsed. Officials predicted a traffic nightmare for Bay Area commuters for weeks or months to come.

Flames shot 200 feet in the air, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns. No other injuries were reported in the 3:45 a.m. crash, which officials said could have been deadly had it occurred at a busier time.

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

Authorities said the damage could take months to repair, and that it would cause the worst disruption for Bay Area commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged a section of the Bay Bridge itself.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070430/ap_on_re_us/highway_collapse

[itsrobert]

59. STOP!

Observe the following rules when posting in the Latest Breaking News Forum

Thousands of people use the DU Latest Breaking News Forum as their primary source for news. Please do not "dilute" the forum by starting threads that are not news.

Be aware of the following restrictions when posting in Latest Breaking News:

1. Do not post news that is more than 12 hours old.

[democrat2thecore]

62. Uhh.....it's not news?

Part of the Bay Area bridge collapses and it's NOT NEWS?

on edit: The thread was started just 4 hours after the collapse - well within the DU guidelines.

[itsrobert]

63. So when is 3:45 AM 4 hours ago?

:shrug: :shrug:

[democrat2thecore]

67. You misunderstand the rules

There's nothing wrong with posting INSIDE a thread after twelve hours. The problem is posting an original thread after twelve hours This thread was posted by NewsJock:
Sun Apr-29-07 08:30 AM

[itsrobert]

69. I replied

to this post..... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2827366&mesg_id=2828095

Which was separate thread until a mod combined it to this one. My original reply was moved with it.

So I'm not misunderstanding anything; you are.

[TechBear_Seattle]

74. When I saw the news on Yahoo, it was flagged as only 3 minutes old

Apologies; I did not realize that it was many hours hold.

[Staph]

60. Un-freaking-believeable!

It looks like a freeway interchange designed by Salvidor Dali!

[Flatulo]

61. Wow, fire can cause steel beams to fail after all...

Has Rosie head about this yet? This would be only the second time in history...

[Flatulo]

66. This is clearly a Rov-ian stunt to discredit 9/11 truthers

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

65. less cars, more bikes

hope this happens more often

on edit.. w/o any casualties of course

[kurth]

70. Same trucking company spilled 4,500 gallons of diesel into roadways and streams last June

when their truck overturned on a stretch of highway in Alameda...

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/04/29-week/

[CreekDog]

72. hiring drivers based on the lowest bidder concept

No wonder.

They should make the CEO's personally pay for the damage the drivers cause, that would get them to be more careful of who they hire.

The rules should be a little different for drivers of tanker trunks and behemoth transport vehicles. No limited liability in my opinion.

[entanglement]

75. One Freep is happy that Berkeley residents will be hardest hit

To: ThePythonicCow

Oh my, all the carbon emissions in those jams. Glad I’m not a delivery driver anymore. The good news is that Berkeley residents will probably be ‘hardest hit.’

164 posted on 04/29/2007 9:28:02 AM PDT by Ieatfrijoles (Grilled cheese sandwiches are delicious.)
< Post Reply | Private Reply | To 161 | View Replies >

:puke:

Another wants to know if the driver is Muslim :eyes:

To: SierraWasp

What’s the driver’s NAME and is he a MUSLIM????????

185 posted on 04/29/2007 10:59:32 AM PDT by Suzy Quzy (Hillary '08...Her Phoniness is Genuine!!!)

:puke:

[AngryAmish]

80. Why did Bush want that bridge destroyed?