X-Rays Will be Needed to Fully Assess the Damage

[XGhozt 410]

Oakland (AP) -- The promise of a nightmarish morning commute led many Bay Area residents to use public transit on Monday, one day after a fiery tanker crash caused the collapse of a heavily trafficked section of freeway. And that wound up making the transportation situation a bit less-awful than many people had feared.

 

Traffic into the city was largely flowing as usual Monday morning, except for drivers slowing on nearby interchanges to peer at the damage. But officials say they still expect major traffic headaches, in the coming days.

 

An elevated section of highway that funnels traffic from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to a number of key freeways was destroyed early Sunday after flames from an overturned gasoline truck caused part of one overpass to collapse onto another.

 

Authorities said the accident would cause the worst disruption for Bay Area commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Bay Bridge itself.

 

Leo Kay, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, took a bus from the East Bay to his office in downtown San Francisco. Like other riders, he craned his neck to catch a view of the crumpled freeway as the bus approached the Bay Bridge.

 

``This is about the same as normal,'' he said of the traffic flow.

 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and authorized free transit on the Bay Area Rapid Transit rail system, ferries and buses.

 

Standing near the wreckage Sunday night, the governor said the state will respond quickly to rebuild the freeway.

 

Schwarzenegger said he hoped the state will ``cut through all the red tape and all the bureaucracy ... so we can get the work done as quickly as possible. After the Northridge earthquake it was within 60 days they rebuilt everything.''

 

State 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.

 

``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.''

 

The governor's emergency declaration will help streamline contracting and environmental codes to hasten cleanup and rebuilding efforts, according to a statement.

 

Though heat from the fire was intense enough to weaken the freeway and damage a stretch of highway hundreds of feet long, the truck's driver walked away from the scene to gas station, Officer Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol said.

 

James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, called a taxi that took him to a nearby hospital with second-degree burns, Cross said. The CHP believes Mosqueda may have lost control because he was speeding, but the investigation is ongoing. Efforts to reach Mosqueda at the hospital were unsuccessful.

 

Mosqueda was headed from a refinery in Benicia to a gas station near the Oakland airport when the accident occurred, according to the CHP.

 

The crash occurred around 3:45 a.m. Sunday 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. About 280,000 commuters take the Bay Bridge in and out of San Francisco each day.

 

California Department of Transportation director Will Kempton said intense heat from the flames caused the steel beams holding up the roadway to buckle and bolts holding the structure together to melt. The cost of repairs would likely run into the tens of millions of dollars, and the agency was seeking federal disaster aid, Kempton said.

 

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Sunday's fiery crash showed how vulnerable the Bay Area's transportation network is, whether to an earthquake or terrorist attack. Sunday's freeway collapse also has the potential to have a major economic effect on the city, he said.

 

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

 

CalTrans workers have already begun removing damaged sections of the freeway -- an effort that was expected to take about two days. Then, after that's finished, Caltrans will call in safety experts to assess the damage.

 

Officials say the connector from the westbound Interstate 80 to southbound Interstate 880 is showing signs of serious damage because some of the supporting steel beams may have been weakened by the heat of the fire. X-rays will have to be taken, to determine the full extent of the damage.

 

 

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

 

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XGhozt:

I read about this, the truck was so hot it melted the freeway. o.0

[Kenshyn 638]

Are you the new RSS Feeds bot? :D

[XGhozt 410]

lol..