http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/us/15tunnel.html?ref=us
October 15, 2007
In California, Fiery Crash Shuts Down an Interstate
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
SANTA CLARITA, Calif., Oct. 14 - Traffic twisted into snarls on Sunday
around one of the most essential interstates on the West Coast as
officials scrambled to clear debris from a fiery, 31-vehicle crash
that killed two adults and a baby in a heavily traveled tunnel in
northern Los Angeles County.
The southbound lanes of the highway, Interstate 5, were to reopen on
Monday morning, officials announced late Sunday. But a roughly two-
mile-long northbound stretch was to remain closed until at least
Tuesday, and commuters and transit officials braced for inevitable
traffic headaches.
Engineers worked feverishly on Sunday afternoon to assess damage to
the burned-out tunnel, which serves as a bypass to the main winding
section of the freeway, the main north-south artery in California.
Officials said it would take weeks to determine the cause of the
Friday night accident, in which 28 trucks and one passenger car
crashed accordion-style in the 500-foot-long tunnel that trucks are
required to use as a southbound bypass lane at the gateway to the San
Fernando Valley. Rain had just begun to fall before the crash, and
high winds fed the flames and quickly created an inferno with
temperatures that neared 2,000 degrees, officials said. Debris removed
from the tunnel 24 hours after the crash was still smoldering.
Several terrified passengers were able to escape the fiery trap, but
two men and an infant died and 10 people were injured. Names of the
victims had not been released. The loss of life was surprisingly low,
in the view of officials - given the number of vehicles involved, the
searing heat and the tight space.
"We're pretty mystified by it, ourselves," said Tom Lackey, a sergeant
with the California Highway Patrol. "Physics was not friendly in that
environment, and it led to some very disastrous circumstances. You
basically had a furnace here for 14 hours."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Los
Angeles County, a move to allow the state to deploy emergency workers
and equipment.
Workers had most of the accident debris removed by Sunday afternoon
and had determined that the roof of the tunnel was probably sound, an
assessment that may allow traffic to flow along the highway above the
tunnel as early as Tuesday.
But the inside clearly suffered structural damage, as evidenced by the
rebar that had separated from the walls. Concrete had more or less
melted from the walls of the tunnel, once white and smooth, now salmon
colored on one side and pocked with deep black gashes. A heavy smell
of char and smoke remained.
Officials will analyze samples of concrete under an electron
microscope to assess the structural damage to the tunnel.
Interstate 5 originates at San Ysidro, one of the main Mexican border
crossings, and interlaces the major population centers of the state,
including San Diego, Los Angeles and Sacramento. It continues north
through Oregon and Washington and into Canada. The part of the roadway
where the accident occurred carries 225,000 vehicles daily, many of
them trucks carrying much of the nation's food supply through the
Central Valley. Like many roadways in California, I-5 suffers from
overuse.
On Saturday and Sunday, motorists found themselves sitting at times
for two hours just to cover the stretch of closed highway. As weekend
drivers snaked their way from Northern California south, traffic
around the tunnel resembled the worst of 4 p.m. Friday afternoon
traffic on any of the area's busiest freeways.
Anne Hilbert had traveled all of one mile during an hour-and-a-half
stretch of her drive from Ojai, in Ventura County, to her home some
100 miles to the south in Orange County. "We were at a retreat, and
there was no TV," Ms. Hilbert said, who was sitting in her car on the
freeway. "But we're on the last leg and they're doing a good job."
At least 70 California transit workers planned to work through the
night into Monday to assess damage and remove debris in anticipation
of opening the highway in both directions by early this week.
"We should be able to open traffic even as we repair the walls," said
Douglas Failing, a district director for the California Department of
Transportation. But the tunnel, a narrow slope surrounded by hills,
could take weeks to reopen, Mr. Failing said. For some Californians,
the delays were business as usual on ever-congested and deteriorating
roadways.
"It's what you can expect," said Julio Castro, who was making his way
from Sacramento to San Diego for work. "That's California, especially
L.A."
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