22,500 litres of gasoline-diesel to clean up...

[smiles 0]

Last week I was woken up by the sound of choppers flying above my home in Abbotsford, B.C. (Canada) -- I could smell gas, the power was out.

There was a loud knock at my front door and I answered to be informed by city firemen -to evacuate. Roadblocks were being set up and a gas truck had rolled as it was making a left turn on a "reverse slant" into a gas station close to my home.

22,500 litres of the gasoline-diesel mix gushed from the truck after the crash, forcing an evacuation of homes and businesses in about a one-square-kilometre area of my city. Authorities cut power to about 7,800 homes, fearing an electrical arc might ignite the fuel, and police and fire personnel evacuated 1,200 residents. Booms were put downstream from the spill to contain the fuel, which was collected in vacuum truck and stored in barrels for disposal. Fire and public works crews flushed the storm/sewer system and set up booms in catchment basins to mop up the fuel.

By 10 o'clock that night the road blocks were down and everyone returned to their homes, power was on and everything o.k.

I cannot visualize what an explosion this could have caused if fuel was ignited??
I do not understand how tanker trucks with 22,500 litres of gasoline and diesel worth $30,000 (or more) are not designed in a way to protect containers from cracking open during a roll or impact??

Did we have horseshoes up our ass or what??


SMiles

eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

[billvon 3,120]

>I cannot visualize what an explosion this could have caused if fuel was ignited??

Would more than likely just burned, which still would have been pretty bad.

>I do not understand how tanker trucks with 22,500 litres of gasoline
> and diesel worth $30,000 (or more) are not designed in a way to
> protect containers from cracking open during a roll or impact??

$$$. You can bet that if any politician proposed a more stringent standard for trucks, their opponents headlines would read "JOE SENATOR WANTS TO GOUGE YOU ON GAS PRICES."

[councilman24 37]

A number of years ago a tanker on a road parallel to a train track turned in front of a train, at the corner right next to city hall, the central fire station and the police station.
I never have figured out with all that moving metal and hot engines why it didn't light off.

For many years ground contamination was being cleaned up with a well and pumping station. Finally removed after 10 years or so.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[EricTheRed 0]

Probably would look like this:

illegible usually

[Pendejo 0]

Mostly they just burn (and burn really really hot I might add).

Here are a couple of pics.

Pendejo

He who swoops the ditch and does not get out buys the BEER!!

[smiles 0]

thanx for pics of truck blaze......all day while I was evacuated from my home I was worried about some huge explosive blast due to gas/diesel ignited in the sewer/storm pipes?? Would that have been possible or would fuel just burn in pipes??


SMiles

eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

[Pendejo 0]

The diesel fuel is really not a concern (regarding a explosive blast). The gasoline on the other hand could be. Remember that its the fumes that make it that way. If the fuel is on the ground it would not really explode, but would make a HUGH fire. There would probly be a "flash" from the fumes burning (pour a little fuel on a bon fire to light it on a cool night, wait a few seconds before you light it and watch what happens), but not a earth shattering explosion like you would see in the movies. If however the tanker were to be struck by something that could cause the fumes inside the tank itself to burn then that is another story (but thats really not very likely).

Pendejo

He who swoops the ditch and does not get out buys the BEER!!

[2fat2fly 0]

As long as the container is compromised the worst you get is a big-ass hot fire. If a container is intacted and exposed to heat/flame from a secondary source, it gets fun-Google "bleve" for that scenario. I remember being paged to a "truck fire" and rolling up on a crashed and burning gas tanker. Rest assured that I went to the dispacher later to explain "pertinant information"

I am not the man. But the man knows my name...and he's worried