Crash Brings Renewed Calls for Protection

Pete Bonasso peered over the blackened concrete block fence lining his backyard Sunday afternoon. A day earlier, the six-foot wall was all that had separated his Westminster house from about 8,000 gallons of exploding gasoline when a tanker was hit and burst into flames on a freeway off-ramp just 15 feet away.

He and his wife, Mary, were grateful that the wall they erected some 18 years ago helped to keep damage to a minimum Saturday night, when the fiery explosion sent balls of fire shooting into the air and closed the San Diego Freeway for hours.

“I didn’t think they’d save this house,” Pete Bonasso said. The flames were just feet away from the building, he said. “When I heard those booms, I thought it was going.”

On Sunday, the scars in the barbecued Bonasso backyard were obvious; the grass, shrubs and trees were all a crackly black, and a rear-facing window was broken from the heat.

But the Bonassos say they are also angry that all their telephone calls, complaints and pleas to Caltrans about the need for a higher fence along the freeway, behind the houses on their Abraham Avenue cul-de-sac, have gone unheeded.

“I called, oh, three years from now, and they (state Department of Transportation officials) said they’d put one up in 1988,” said Mary Bonasso. “I said that I’d be dead and buried by then.”

Officials for Caltrans, which was closed Sunday, were unavailable for comment.

‘Another Nasty Letter’

The Bonassos have done most of the neighborhood’s campaigning for a wall. But others along the cul-de-sac said Sunday that they, too, want more protection from accidents and noise. Currently, only a chain-link fence separates most of the backyards from the off-ramp and freeway median, they said.

“I’ll send off another nasty letter tomorrow,” said Richard Butcher, who lives with his wife and four children next to the Bonassos. “I want to see if I can get a commitment from them.”

The accident Saturday occurred shortly after 5:30 p.m., authorities said, when a southbound recreational vehicle attempted to make a sudden lane change to exit at Springdale Street.

The recreational vehicle collided with a tanker carrying 8,800 gallons of Texaco gasoline. The tanker jackknifed, overturned and burst into flames on the Springdale exit, which is adjacent to the backyard of several houses on Abraham Avenue.

While authorities were able to pump 800 to 1,000 gallons of gasoline out of the tanker, the remainder burned, requiring the closure of both the northbound and southbound lanes for several hours, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Chris Madigan said. Northbound lanes were reopened at 8:45 p.m., but the southbound lanes remained closed until 3:10 a.m. Sunday, about an hour after the tanker had been removed, he said.

Neither the driver of the tanker, identified as Edwardo Chivira, 37, of Whittier, or the couple in the recreational vehicle, George Raimbault and Valerie Baylis of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was injured, authorities said. But a number of homes along Abraham Avenue were evacuated because of the fire danger, said fire controller Jody Walker with Net 6, a group of firefighting agencies in west Orange County linked by a radio dispatching network. Residents were not allowed back until about 11 p.m., Walker said.

An investigation is continuing, Madigan said. No citations had been issued as of Sunday, “but it does appear that the motor home was at fault,” he said.

Most of the spilled gasoline was diked and vacuumed at the scene, but a small amount did enter an area storm drain, she said.

Ninety firefighters and 24 units were at the scene of the spectacular blaze. Firefighters from Westminster, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Orange County and the Los Alamitos air station fought the blaze, Walker said. Specially trained hazardous materials teams from Huntington Beach, Anaheim and Orange County fire departments also were called in. Meanwhile, Walker said, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana fire departments had responded to provide coverage at fire stations that had been vacated by firefighters at the blaze.

Other Agencies Assist

In addition, the Orange County Health Department, county Environmental Management Agency, Caltrans, California Highway Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard, California Department of Fish and Game and South Coast Air Quality Management Department were called in to assist, Walker said.

Residents along the cul-de-sac said Saturday’s spectacular fire was not the first accident literally in their backyards. “But this was the worst,” said Butcher.

Butcher, 38, an arson investigator for the Huntington Beach Police Department, said a number of cars have plowed into the Caltrans-installed chain-link fence during the 13 years he has lived on the street. He recalled that about six years ago, a large truck lost a tire while traveling on the freeway, and a gigantic piece of heavy rubber bounced over the fence, landing in his backyard, where his small children were playing.

“They were too scared to play out there again for a long time,” Butcher said.

Pete and Mary Bonasso moved into their home about 25 years ago, before the freeway was there, they said. When the off-ramp was built, they said they immediately asked Caltrans for a wall, but when they didn’t get one, they built their own.

That still did not stop a truck from plowing into their backyard and patio about 10 years ago, the Bonassos said. The last time their block wall was knocked down, Caltrans did not even bother to restore the agency’s chain-link fence on the other side of it, said Pete Bonasso, 62.

Appraiser Takes Note

“There have been lots of other accidents,” said Mary Bonasso, 63. “All the accidents happen right here. So many people take the wrong turn or hit the (off-ramp) curb.”

Butcher noted that when he bought his house, the appraiser did not notice that there was no block wall for safety or noise along his backyard. But when he recently had the house reappraised, an appraiser deducted $5,000 from the house’s value because there was no wall, he said.

If the higher wall sought by the Abraham Avenue residents had been in place Saturday, it would have directed the force of the fire “straight up,” and the houses would not have been so endangered, Butcher said. The explosions, he said, “shook the whole house.”

If a wall is to be added in 1988, Caltrans should be planning and starting to build it now, he said, and there is no evidence that that is occurring.

Another neighbor, Steve Cantwell, 34, who moved to Abraham Avenue in August, said he too has heard a wall will be installed next year, but he is not as aggravated about it as others. “I think that (the potential for accidents and noise) is one of the things you realize when you move in a place like this,” he said.

Mary Bonasso said she plans to get on the telephone to Caltrans first thing this morning to renew her campaign for a wall. But she doubts that the weekend’s near-tragedy will have any impact.

“No, we’ve had so many accidents before,” she said, “and still nothing was done about it.”

Los Angeles Times

Pete Bonasso

‘I didn’t think they’d save this house. When I heard those booms, I thought it was going.’