By John Coté and Marisa Lagos
The San Francisco Chronicle
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Highway 101 on the mid-Peninsula was shut down for hours Tuesday after a gasoline tanker trailer overturned and sent more than a thousand gallons of gasoline sloshing across the northbound lanes, into a storm drain and under the southbound lanes of the freeway.
There were no injuries and no fires or explosions during the incident in Redwood City, but fire crews had no choice but to close the highway in both directions until the spilled fuel could be removed.
And cleanup proved harder than expected as crews worked late into the night with changing estimates as to when the highway could reopen. The southbound lanes opened at 10:30 p.m., and officials hoped to open the northbound lanes by this morning’s commute.
The accident occurred at 1:50 p.m. when a northbound minivan, trying to avoid hitting another car, clipped the tandem tanker trailer operated by Keenan Advantage Group West of West Sacramento. Although the front section of the truck remained upright, the rear trailer flipped over, dumping an estimated 1,600 gallons of gasoline. About 1,000 gallons remained in the overturned tank.
Authorities said that as the fuel spilled across the freeway, it flowed into a storm drain at the center divide and poured underneath the southbound lanes. The CHP immediately shut down the northbound lanes, and later around 4 p.m., concerned that there could be a fire or explosion, shut down the southbound lanes.
“They don’t want the freeway to blow up under cars driving by,” said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Paul McCarthy.
An inflatable boom appears to have blocked the gas from reaching Redwood Creek, which leads to the bay.
Before it reopened, a 9-mile section of southbound 101 was closed from Highway 92 to Woodside Road, and a 2-mile section of northbound 101 remained closed from Woodside Road to Whipple Avenue as of late last night.
Local fire officials rolled out hazardous materials crews shortly after the incident. NRC Environmental Services, an environmental and hazardous waste management firm, sent large vacuum pump trucks to assist with the cleanup.
Crews sprayed fire-suppressant foam on the road and used a substance similar to kitty litter to soak up the gasoline, which was pooling near the center divide for at least an hour after the accident.
McCarthy said authorities were not able to set the tanker trailer on its wheels until it was fully emptied of gasoline because of the danger of a fire or explosion. By evening, they had completed the transfer of the estimated 1,000 gallons of gasoline to a tanker truck that arrived from Martinez late in the afternoon after making its way through the traffic mess. The overturned part of the tanker trailer was set upright at around 8:30 p.m., and the tanker trailer was hauled away around 9:30 p.m.
Angelina Revuelta, 28, said she had been driving the minivan that hit the tanker. Revuelta was driving home to Hayward, was cut off by a gray BMW, lost control and hit the tanker trailer, she said. The BMW did not pull over.
The tanker trailer’s driver declined to comment. Revuelta’s van is still at the scene, its hood sheared from the impact of the crash.
Firefighters approach the tanker truck that turned over after it was hit by a minivan on Highway 101 north of Woodside Road.