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Traffic at the Massaponax interchange of U.S. 1 and Interstate 95 grinds to a halt as vehicles are detoured off southbound I-95
LEFT: Michael Powell of Powell's Towing rinses off
TOP: Caroline County truck driver Jessie Starks sits in traffic yesterday afternoon
State Trooper M. W. Dailey, wearing a hazmat suit, uses a tool to measure distances at the Interstate 95 accident scene where three tractor-trailers
Crews work |
By BILL FREEHLING
A tractor-trailer carrying hazardous materials crashed in Spotsylvania County early yesterday, killing its driver, closing southbound Interstate 95 near Massaponax and paralyzing the region for about 24 hours.
All three lanes of I-95 south were closed all day between Exits 118 and 126. Officials hoped to re-open the road between midnight and 2 a.m. today.
Between 500 and 1,000 gallons of toxic herbicide spilled when the truck crashed into another about 1 a.m. at the highway's 122-mile marker, police said.
The collision and chemical spill sent nearly a dozen people to the hospital.
The accident occurred when three tractor-trailers traveling south in the right lane came upon a work zone, said Sgt. Les Tyler of the Virginia State Police.
The first tractor-trailer, driven by 57-year-old Baltimore resident George L. Mathews, stopped. So did the second, driven by Vladimir L. Karmanov, a 36-year-old from Quebec, Canada.
The third tractor-trailer crashed into the second, which hit the first. The rig was carrying 14 tanks that held 275 gallons each of the chemical. Three to five of the tanks burst, Tyler said.
The driver, 41-year-old Neil C. Irelan of Conway, Ark., died at the scene. He would have turned 42 today, Tyler said.
Mathews and Karmanov were treated and released at Mary Washington Hospital, police said.
Tyler said two state troopers and about six to eight rescue-squad workers were exposed to the chemical and taken to the hospital.
Many people cleaning up the chemical were sprayed down at the scene in showers that were set up for that purpose. Workers drank Gatorade and were treated by medics in a makeshift tent. A portable restroom was brought to the site.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality asked the state Department of Transportation to mill and repave the contaminated asphalt on all three southbound lanes of I-95.
VDOT spokeswoman Tina Bundy said crews couldn't begin work until the chemicals and truck wreckage were removed from the road about 9 p.m.
"It's going very slow," she said at 10:30 p.m. Rain was hampering the operation, but VDOT hoped to have one lane re-paved and open by midnight, she said.
Crews were working to replace about 200 yards of pavement that stretched across both shoulders and three southbound lanes. Bundy said they would mill as far down as the chemicals had seeped.
Things were much different on the other side of the interstate. Two northbound lanes had reopened by about 6:30 a.m. yesterday. The third northbound lane reopened about 5:30 p.m., Bundy said.
The accident created a traffic nightmare that afflicted the region's major and minor roads.
Bundy said northbound I-95 traffic was slow-moving all day as people gazed at the wreckage. In the afternoon, motorists were backed up seven miles to the south of the wreck site.
Southbound I-95's lanes backed up at least 20 miles--into Prince William County--most of the afternoon and into rush hour.
"It's just a parking lot," Bundy said.
By 9:30 p.m., the southbound backup had shrunk, starting just south of the State Route 630 exit at Stafford Courthouse, she said.
The congestion wasn't isolated to the interstate. Bundy said it was taking people two hours to navigate the detour routes from I-95's U.S. 17 exit in southern Stafford County to the Thornburg exit in Spotsylvania.
Fredericksburg didn't escape the tie-ups. Police Lt. Gary Sullivan said roads leading to alternate arteries--U.S. 1, 17 and 301 and State Routes 2 and 3--were at a standstill yesterday evening.
That included usually placid commercial and residential roads such as Princess Anne Street, where big rigs idled in front of historic homes on the way to Routes 2 and 17.
"Everybody's trying to find a different way," Sullivan said. "But they're all going the same ways."
It wasn't the first time a hazardous-materials spill had shut down Virginia highways and slowed surrounding traffic.
There were 117 hazardous-materials incidents on the state's highways last year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The cost of cleaning up yesterday's crash has not yet been determined. But thousands of people traveling the roads could easily calculate the unpleasantness of the day.
"Traffic is just slow-going everywhere," Bundy said.
Staff writer Edie Gross, staff librarian Craig Schulin and fredericksburg.com reporter Becky Piedel contributed to this story.
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