Knocked Back to the Stone Age (or at least, 1997)

Ouch. We had a nasty accident here in the SF Bay area...at around 4am last Sunday a tanker truck overturned, and its cargo of 8,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline ignited.

This happened in an area locals call "the MacArthur Maze", because it is just east of the toll plaza for the Oakland-SF Bay bridge, and it is at a point where about five freeways interchange.The freeways all crisscross each other with flyovers and viaducts several layers tall. The truck exploded directly underneath a flyover for I-580, constructed of asphalt and concrete supported by a steel lattice. Steel starts to get soft at around 1000 degrees, and flat-out melts at 2750. They estimate the fire from the gasoline burned at around 3000 degrees for two hours. So it wasn't long before the roadway above collapsed onto the other freeway below.

It was the eastbound 580 that crashed onto the southbound 880. Oh well, we got to have the 880 back for almost ten years. You see, this is the same section of freeway that pancaked in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. They finally finished the replacement in 1997-1998, so it had taken almost ten years to replace it. While it was out, one had to take a long and tricky detour through central Oakland if you were heading south along the East Bay. That's what we are back to. The highway department said that repairs could take several months; one of the reasons being a shortage of steel! Boy, I sure am glad that I can work mostly from home. If I weren't a telecommuter, I'd really be feeling the pinch!

By the way, there was a tanker explosion almost in the same place a few years ago. This one scorched the underside of the westbound flyover of I-580, but not enough to melt it. So to all you truckers out there (especially those hauling flammable cargoes), PLEASE, slow down when you go through the maze. The freeway you save may be your own...