My husband and I were getting coffee this morning at our hotel in San Francisco after enjoying a grown-ups only weekend in the city to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary when we saw televisions with pictures reminiscent of the Loma Prieta earthquake when the 880 freeway collapsed.  We were amazed to learn that a tanker truck had crashed and caught fire, causing a portion of the 580 freeway above it to collapse.  Thank goodness, we said, that we had decided to BART into the city on Saturday—the collapsed, burnt freeway was the freeway we would have needed to take us back home. 

But there was no denying the huge impact this disaster would have on the lives of our friends and neighbors in Oakland.  My husband commutes everyday to downtown SF on an express bus.  (I, once again, was thankful to have a job that allows me to work from home.)  Many of our friends participate in the area’s huge “casual carpool” program (drivers pick up strangers from several designated areas around the East Bay and drive into the city, allowing the drivers to avoid paying tolls and to use the carpool lanes). Getting home to Oakland—in a carpool or not—is going to be a nightmare trip for the next several weeks/months. It was hard enough to get a parking spot at BART stations before the accident–parking will be nightmare for new and old BART riders.

Thank goodness that the accident happened in the early hours of a Sunday.  It would have truly been a fatal disaster if the normal early morning, weekday traffic had been on those freeway overpasses when the truck tipped and caught fire.

Early on, it looks like the driver wasn’t drunk or drugged.  He’s a novice—only having driven these big trucks for about 10 months, according to the news reports.  I’m sure that within the week, there will be bills introduced to prevent novice drivers from driving trucks filled with flammable materials.

My daughters and I drove by the collapsed freeway this afternoon as we ran errands.  My 11-year-old said, with amazement, that the enormous swath of pavement drooping down looked like a piece of fabric.  In the end, East Bay residents will be inconvenienced as the state tries to repair the freeway as quickly as possible.  But just the region did after Loma Prieta, people will adjust their habits, working different hours or finding different ways to commute to the city. 

On a (political) side note:  Remember Rosie O’Donnell’s silly comments about 9/11 on the March 29 edition of the View?  If not, let me refresh your memory:

[From PopularMechanics.com] While saying she didn’t know what to believe about the government’s involvement in the attacks of Sept. 11, she said, “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7—building 7, which collapsed in on itself—it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes—7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”

I couldn’t help but to remember her remarks when I saw the damaged freeway.  Here’s the explanation Popular Mechanic offered basically to rebut her remarks and educate the public on the truth. 

"The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center weren’t knocked down by planes—they both stood for more than a half-hour after the impacts. But the crashes destroyed support columns and ignited infernos that ultimately weakened—not melted—the steel structures until the towers could no longer support their own weights (NIST offers a primer here). Ms. O’Donnell fundamentally misstates the case with her use of the word “melted”: Evidence currently points to WTC7 also collapsing because fires weakened its ravaged steel structure."

I’m assuming, that like the WTC, the freeway didn’t melt, but collapsed when its support columns were weakened from the enormous explosion the 8,600 gallons of gasoline must have caused.  But I won’t be surprised to hear Rosie O’Donnell blame President Bush for the collapsed freeway tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.