Residents Evacuated After Truck Causes Gas Spill

Hundreds of Walnut Park residents were evacuated from their homes for several hours early Saturday after a pickup truck rammed a gas station pump, triggering a 1,000-gallon gasoline spill, authorities said.

A Sheriff’s Department officer spotted the accident about 4 a.m. at the Fast Fuel gas station at 1360 E. Firestone Blvd., in the unincorporated county area southeast of Los Angeles. The truck had sheared the pump off at its base, rupturing a pipe below, said Sgt. Dan Gayhart. But the vehicle, which bore no license plates, was empty, he said.

Although gas stations must be equipped with at least two safety switches to prevent such spills, even when a pump is knocked down, both measures apparently failed, a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman said. A shut-off switch underneath the pump was inoperable and another that is supposed to automatically turn off the pump in such an emergency also failed to operate, he said.

Firefighters erected dikes in nearby Compton Creek to contain the fuel and used more than 400 gallons of fire-retardant foam to cover the flammable liquid that spilled onto nearby streets and collected in gutters and storm drains.

Faced with the possibility of an explosion, sheriff’s deputies evacuated about 240 residents from 60 homes in the area. Most stayed with relatives and friends, while about 40 went to a Red Cross shelter set up at a nearby school.

Residents were allowed to return home before noon, after the last of the foam and gasoline had been picked up by vacuum trucks contracted for the final cleanup operation, authorities said.