Jan 30, 2008 12:44 am US/Pacific
SB Hwy. 101 Reopens; NB Closed Until Wed. Morning
REDWOOD CITY (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
A nine-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 101 along the Peninsula remained closed in the northbound direction late Tuesday night following an afternoon wreck in Redwood City involving an overturned tanker that leaked fuel onto the roadway.
Southbound lanes reopened just after 10:30 p.m.Tuesday, but northbound lanes were not expected to reopen until 6 a.m. Wednesday, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Officials said they needed to keep the northbound highway closed overnight to repave all the lanes from Woodside to Whipple.
A van collided with a big-rig hauling two 26,000-gallon gasoline tankers along northbound 101 near Maple Road around 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, causing the rear tanker to overturn and spill an estimated 1,600 gallons of fuel onto the highway.
"Gasoline was leaking into the center divide drains," said CHP Officer Tracy Hoover.
Both directions of the highway were closed between state Highway 84 and state Highway 92 after the wreck as crews worked to clean up the gasoline.
California Department of Transportation officials said the roadway had to be closed because the gasoline that leaked into drainage ditches along the highway posed an explosive threat to drivers.
The shutdown left traffic at a virtual standstill along the Peninsula for hours and wreaked havoc on the Tuesday evening commute.
It caused gridlock in one of the busiest traffic areas in the Bay Area -- turning the northbound highway into a parking lot as far south as Palo Alto, while southbound backups extended well past the San Francisco airport.
One driver reported that the trip from San Francisco to San Mateo took over an hour and a half.
The cleanup process involved many steps, some of them potentially dangerous, and required fire and hazmat crews to be extra careful, said Redwood City fire officials.
Aside from dreadful traffic and the potential for gasoline to ignite, protection of marine life became a concern as U.S. Coast Guard crews scurried to stunt the fuel from reaching pipes that lead to San Francisco Bay.
"Crews responded to the scene to assess the situation and see if gasoline had begun leaking into the bay," a Coast Guard spokeswoman said. However, officials later said that none of the fuel appeared to have gone that far.
Before hazmat crews could begin pumping out gas and water from drainage ditches along the highway, fire crews needed to upright the overturned tanker and haul it off the road. They could not upright the tanker until it was emptied of all the remaining gasoline, Caltrans official Lauren Wonders said.
One person suffered minor injuries in the tanker accident, the CHP's Hoover said. No major injuries were reported.
Motorists were advised to use Woodside to El Camino Real to Whipple to Hwy. 101 or Eastbound Hwy. 84 to Northbound I-880 to Westbound Hwy. 92 as alternate routes during the closure.
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