Fuel likely burned before hitting water
Fuel that reached drainage pipes caused miniexplosions and a manhole cover to pop.
By CURTIS KRUEGER and AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published March 30, 2007
Pour enough diesel fuel into an enclosed space like the city's drainage pipes and you've essentially built a bomb.
That's what happened Wednesday night when a tanker truck crashed and burned on the Interstate 375 overpass.
But the inferno did not turn into an environmental disaster because much of the fuel burned before it could poison area waters, officials said Thursday.
Immediately after the crash, diesel fuel rained off the overpass, poured into drains and sloshed into pipes that normally carry rainwater.
The fuel ignited and burned. Expanding gases built up pressure inside the pipes and blasted at least one manhole cover into the air.
"It's like a bottle of Coke," said Mike Connors, internal services administrator for St. Petersburg. "You shake the bottle, and it pops off the top."
Miniexplosions ignited inside the drainage system, and small fireballs burst out of it.
The force of the blast from one manhole knocked a police officer off his feet, even though the cover did not hit him. Officer Thad Crisco, 48, suffered a mild concussion; officials said he was recovering Thursday afternoon.
Authorities say they think the tanker truck that crashed was carrying some 12,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
With so much fuel pouring down onto a city maintenance yard below, officials expected to find major pollution in storm sewer pipes that lead to Booker Creek. The creek carries rainwater runoff from a portion of downtown St. Petersburg to Tropicana Field, past Campbell Park, through Roser Park and finally into Bayboro Harbor, near the University of South Florida. Diesel fuel is toxic to fish and other marine life.
That's why city crews set up plastic "booms" designed to collect spilled diesel fuel at three locations along the creek - one in the city maintenance yard near the 1600 block of Third Avenue N, one near Burlington Avenue and 16th Street and one in the Roser Park neighborhood.
The booms are barriers to trap materials such as fuel, so the toxic substance can later be removed with special equipment.
But Connors, who worked all night on the project, said he was surprised early Thursday to find only a small amount of fuel at one of those locations, the one near Burlington Avenue and 16th Street.
"Apparently what happened is the vast, vast majority of this fuel just burned off," Connors said. "We were very surprised at the very small amounts of residuals."
The searing heat of that blaze was obvious to the crews who worked on the road a dozen hours after the incident Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. Much of the road was as black as the inside of a charcoal grill. City officials said the heat was so intense it ate holes up to a foot deep in the concrete. Wisps of smoke were still visible in the area Thursday morning.
Times staff writer Abhi Raghunathan contributed to this report.