Acid Spill Forces Freeway Closure
Morning rush-hour traffic slowed to a crawl Wednesday on the Antelope Valley Freeway in Newhall after a small spill of muriatic acid from a truck forced the closure of two southbound lanes for two hours, the California Highway Patrol reported.
Johnny Reese, 44, of Palmdale, the driver of the tractor-trailer truck that was hauling pool chemicals, was treated for inhalation of fumes from the spilled chemical, the CHP said. He was not seriously hurt.
Officer A.J. Torres said only five gallons of the chemical spilled from the truck at 7:30 a.m. near the freeway’s San Fernando Road on-ramp. CHP officers and a Los Angeles County Fire Department hazardous-materials unit blocked two of the four southbound lanes, Torres said.
He said the spill was cleaned up by 9:30 a.m.
With motorists on the normally heavy southbound commute crowded into the two open lanes, traffic slowed to a bumper-to-bumper crawl and backed up more than a mile. The southbound on-ramp from San Fernando Road to the freeway was also closed during the cleanup.
The CHP said the spill apparently occurred when a pallet of muriatic acid containers shifted and several containers broke open.
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