Truck Explosion on Interchange in Bay Area Kills Driver, Injures 7

A tanker truck carrying an estimated 6,000 gallons of butane and liquefied petroleum gas exploded after skidding along a guard rail on a busy freeway interchange Sunday morning, killing the driver and injuring at least seven others.

The explosion tore the tanker truck into pieces and threw a huge ball of flame into the air, damaging the highway and incinerating a car on a highway ramp above the Interstate 580 interchange.

Authorities closed the interchange, known as the MacArthur Maze, which is the main connector between Oakland, Berkeley and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

About a one-eighth-mile stretch of the highway was charred and strewn with debris. An overhead highway sign lay burned and twisted in the roadway next to melted metal and smoldering tires.

It was unclear when the raised transition ramp from northbound I-80 to eastbound I-580 would reopen, the California Highway Patrol said. Traffic was being diverted from the area.

A preliminary investigation showed that the driver may have been traveling too fast around the interchange curve, said CHP spokeswoman B. J. Whitten. The truck hit an abutment, punching a hole in the tank, then slid along a rail, creating friction that ignited the fuel, officials said.

The driver’s identity and company he worked for were not immediately known.

At least seven people were treated for burns and five cars were damaged from flying debris, Whitten said.

An Oakland family of four were burned as they drove to church in San Francisco. Joe and Marsha Washington were with their sons, Kenneth, 13, and Jerold, 18, heading west on the I-580 connector to the Bay Bridge when their car was engulfed by flames.

They immediately fled their car, which was destroyed. All four were treated for minor burns.

“All of a sudden there was a great humongous ball of orange fire everywhere. It seemed like we drove through it forever. It was unbelievable, something you can’t explain,” Joe Washington told KCBS radio.

Witnesses said the truck flipped over and burst into flames. Paul Bronken was on city streets about a mile away when he felt the ground shake.

“The building shook without any noise. The guys I was talking to said ‘Hey man, it’s an earthquake.’ The next thing was some noise and then this big glow and the heat,” Bronken said.

State Department of Transportation officials said the damaged ramp would be closed indefinitely. The accident blew a one-foot-wide hole through the highway, ripped the guard rails and damaged the center divider.