Here is what I was doing Friday at work!!! That is a 9000 gallon propane tanker on its side with a 4000 gallon pup behind it. The tanker was going from I-80 to southbound I-215 out of Parley's Canyon. It was going too fast, tipped over, took out some jersey barriers, a light pole, and a bunch of those large cement sound wall panels where it stopped halfway in someone's backyard. This is the biggest Haz-MAt incident I have been on and may ever be on.
The cloud is propane and all 9000 gallons slowy leaked out. Thousands of residents were evacuated, freeways were shut down for 12 hours, the driver was hurt (I can tell you how it happened if you call me-you won't believe me!!) but survived, he was rescued by first arriving crews.
I was involved in a lot of research, hands-on monitoring, damming, more air monitoring, overseeing the uprighting of the tanker and much more. It was awesome and maybe the scariest, most nerve-racking thing I have ever done. I learned a lot and fortunately the thing never caught fire and everyone went home at about 1 a.m.
Some fun stuff-Propane has a boiling point of -40 F and the outside temp was 50 F. There was a large pool of propane under that cloud that was boiling-one of the coolest things I have ever seen. There was also a ring around the pool that was freezing the ground and building up frozen propane. I could write so much more but just feast on some of these pictures of first arriving units. (We are across the valley and the guy was rescued just as we were arriving). It was very surreal to say the least.
These are the guys who rescued the driver-Crews from Stations 112 and 106!!
Our (Station 109) engine and Haz-Mat Rig
This news story shows some of the stuff I did. I was one of the firefighters in gear by the tanker in the dark pictures. http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=4863887
