SIMI VALLEY : Bouncing Boulder Blocks Freeway

Letting a boulder go where none has gone before, a Fontana trucker lost control of his load in Simi Valley on Wednesday, dumping an 18-ton chunk of granite in the middle of the Simi Valley Freeway.

No one was hurt when the massive rock, bound for a harbor project in Ventura, folded Jenaro Montes’ flatbed semi trailer in half as it jounced over the hump of a freeway overpass on the freeway at about noon.

But the wrecked rig--with its enormous cargo still chained to the trailer--blocked one westbound lane for more than an hour.

Caltrans workers finally shoved the huge rock onto the Tapo Canyon on-ramp with a skip-loader, clearing the freeway but blocking the entrance for more than five hours.

Montes, 53, said he had been watching the rock bounce in the rear-view mirror as the truck rode over overpasses, which are slightly higher than the rest of the freeway. The rock kept getting lower and lower as the truck entered Simi Valley, Montes said, and he finally started pulling his rig off the freeway.

The buckled rig left a deep gouge in the pavement that curves from the center lane to the right, where it ground to a stop.

“That rock was too heavy,” Montes said.

The 18-ton boulder was one of hundreds that are being trucked from granite quarries in Riverside County to Ventura Harbor, said Richard Parsons, general manager of the Ventura Port District.

By next week, tractor-trailers will have hauled 33,000 tons of boulders weighing 12 to 22 tons apiece--enough to fill 1,500 flatbeds--to the harbor, he said. The boulders are being hoisted onto the breakwater and rock jetties at the harbor mouth to keep silt from building up there in the strong currents. The hauling should end next week.

The accident is still under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.