Truck driver killed after fuel tanker rolled over, causing massive fire …

21/04/2023

The driver of a fuel tanker truck was killed Friday after the truck rolled over on Connecticut’s largest bridge, spilling about 2,200 gallons of oil and causing a massive fire that sent plumes of black smoke into the air, officials said.

The tire of a car driving on the Gold Star Memorial Bridge blew out, “creating an incident with a tractor-trailer truck that went over,” Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said during a press conference.

The fuel oil was on fire as it spilled through pipes into the Thames River below, Lamont said. The bridge stretches across the river from Groton to New London.

Connecticut State Police Sergeant Christine Jeltema said several people were hurt in the crash. The people in the car don’t have life-threatening injuries, Lamont said.

The crash prompted officials to close the northbound and southbound lanes of the bridge, part of Interstate 95. The northbound lanes reopened Friday afternoon, but the southbound side will remain closed indefinitely as transportation officials conduct a structural analysis.

The intense heat from the burning fuel could compromise the steel, Lamont said.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is working to contain the oil that spilled into the river, Lamont said. Richard Swan, assistant director of DEEP’s emergency response unit, said the agency deployed booms that have collected about 85 percent of the oil.

Connecticut State Police first received a report about the accident at 11:15 a.m., Jeltema said, and multiple agencies responded.

The bridge, which was built in 1973 and last repaired and restored in 2018, carries about 60,000 vehicles per day, said Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Transportation.

Ben Tocchi, 41, who lives in Brighton, was driving to Boston from visiting his mother in Mystic, Conn., when he became stuck in traffic near the bridge.

“I noticed a massive, black-looking funnel cloud in the sky, and I’m like ‘that’s really not good,’ and as I got closer it was getting bigger,” Tocchi said. “Fire trucks were shooting down the highway.”

Tocchi said he was eventually able to cross the bridge on the southbound side, where the crash took place. As he passed by, he saw the charred undercarriage of the truck, foam sprayed across the road, and smoke billowing from under the bridge. The metal railings that typically guard the side of the highway were gone.

“You could see the wheels and that was it,” Tocchi said. “Seeing that instantly sobers you.”

Video posted to Twitter at 11:40 a.m. that appeared to be taken by a driver on the bridge showed a stretch of flames and black smoke rising into the air.

“I saw a giant cloud of smoke and a line of fire,” Chris Stevens, who took the video, told CT Insider ^[1]. “The closer you got, you just saw a wall of fire and you could feel the heat. Everyone was driving in the left breakdown lane to avoid it.”

Amanda Kaufman can be reached at [email protected]^[2]. Follow her on Twitter @amandakauf1 ^[3].

References

^{^} told CT Insider (www.ctinsider.com)
^{^} [email protected] (www.bostonglobe.com)
^{^} @amandakauf1 (www.twitter.com)