About a 1-mile-long stretch of Old Lemay Ferry Road between Frisco Hill Road and Regency Woods Place in Imperial is closed after a tractor-trailer carrying a load of paint ran off the road and overturned Thursday evening (Jan. 25), said Assistant Chief Glenn Nivens with the Antonia Fire Protection District.
No paint spilled onto the road, although paint spilled into the ravine where the big rig ended up. The road was closed because buckets of paint had to be removed from the tractor-trailer before the big rig could be towed from the scene, Nivens said.
Crews from an environmental firm were on the scene this morning (Jan. 26) removing buckets of paint from the trailer. After the buckets are removed, the tractor-trailer will have to be towed away before the road can reopen, Nivens said at about 10 a.m. today.
“It will probably be closed for another eight to 12 hours,” he said.
“They have to get half the product off the truck and the tractor and trailer out of there,” Nivens said.
After the crash, firefighters were on the scene to ensure that the load of oil-based paint did not ignite, he said.
“The road was closed immediately and we had to cool the truck down and get rid of all the ignition sources because we were dealing with a flammable product,” Nivens said.
They used water and foam to cool down the truck and protect the product from igniting because it had a low-ignition temperature, he said.
Firefighters had to remain on the scene until tow truck personnel removed the big rig’s batteries, Nivens added.
Antonia Fire got the call about the crash just after 6:30 p.m. Thursday evening.
The big rig was on Old Lemay Ferry Road and just north of Frisco Hill Road and failed to navigate a hairpin turn, ran off the road, went down a 150-foot ravine and overturned, Nivens said.
“We had diesel fuel leaking and the trailer was twisted and split, exposing the paint,” Nivens said.
The Landstar System truck was carrying about 40,000 pounds of materials, including 550 five-gallon buckets and 1,168 one-gallon buckets of paint, along with dry materials, Nivens said.
The truck was hauling the load from Masterchem Industries LLC, which is on Old Hwy. M in Imperial.
The driver, from Texas, “bumped his head,” but was not seriously hurt, Nivens said.
When firefighters arrived on the scene, they called in a Hazmat team, which contacted the shipper. The shipper is responsible for the cleanup and called the environmental company to clean up the site, Nivens said.
The Rock Community, Saline Valley and Goldman fire protection districts helped with the call.
Buses from the Fox C-6 School District had to be rerouted to avoid the area this morning, communications coordinator Sam Rayburn said.
“We asked parents to be patient in the morning, letting them know buses might be off schedule or have a different bus number as we rerouted around the mess,” he said.