Speeding Led to Crash, Explosion and Roadway Collapse, Police Say
San Jose Mercury News Date: April 29, 2007
SAN JOSE, Calif. _ As transportation officials braced for massive gridlock during
Monday's commute after the collapse of a key connector ramp near the San Francisco-
Oakland Bay Bridge early Sunday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of
emergency and authorized free public transit rides to help people get to work.
"I have issued an emergency declaration in order to begin immediate repair and
replacement of the interchange in Emeryville," according to a written statement released
by the governor's office.
"This declaration will streamline public contracting and environmental codes and provide
emergency funding to allow repair operations to begin immediately."
The ramp that connects Interstate 80 to eastbound Interstate 580 collapsed after a
speeding tanker truck with 8,600 gallons of gasoline slammed into a guard rail, sparking
an explosion and intense fire, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Tons of steel, concrete and asphalt blanketed part of the westbound Interstate 80 to
Interstate 880 connector ramp that the truck was traveling on when it crashed.
The part of the heavily-traveled MacArthur Maze where the collapse occurred 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.
Local commuter rail officials said Sunday they will increase the capacity of their trains
by 50 percent on Monday, and the CHP released a list of alternative routes from San
Francisco to the East Bay and from the northern part of the East Bay to the South Bay.
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. PDT. 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, Calif., 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.
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 coming 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, adding that there is little information available
because 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 crash sparked a series of explosions on the lower portion of the ramp where
Mosqueda was driving from westbound Interstate 80 to southbound Interstate 880. The
intense heat melted the steel screws on the upper deck of the ramp, which was built in the
1950s.
Although the collapse has closed the ramp, 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.
Ordinarily, it isn't that easy to knock down a freeway. But the fireball apparently erupted
precisely at the Achilles' heel of the skyway _ the underside of the pier where all of the
supporting steel girders are bare and unprotected by concrete or anything else, according
to Berkeley civil engineering 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 the World Trade Center
towers did on Sept. 11, 2001. The steel supports were baked at, and probably beyond,
1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which steel turns to rubber, said Astaneh, who
studied the WTC collapse for the National Science Foundation and also studied the
MacArthur Maze after the 1989 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 proclamation,
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 said state contracting rules have already been suspended to speed up the
rebuilding. The rules normally require a competitive bidding process for public works
projects.
While he would not offer any kind of time frame for repairing the ramp, 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 relatively isolated and can be
addressed immediately.
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
Interstate 5 north of the 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 workday. 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."
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(Media News staff writer Ian Hoffman contributed to this report.)