Filed under: There and Back Again
What happens when you have to go to the airport and you happen to be in a city with ridiculously crowded roads? (answer: leave early) And to get from the city to the airport you have to cross one (of several) bridges? (answer: leave earlier) And what happens, when two hours before your flight, you hear about a melted freeway? One that happens to be inbetween you and the airport? (answer: get a move on!) My first thoughts: What the hell! You can’t melt a freeway! It’s made of concrete! My second thoughts: Seriously? Wow. That’s gonna be kind of a problem. Ok, so here’s what happened. A tanker truck full of gasoline was heading down the freeway and came to a “spaghetti bowl” type area of overpasses, underpasses, on ramps, off ramps…and at that precise moment the truck ran off the road a little, turned over and caught on fire. In less than 30 minutes the blaze had melted a 230-meter section of freeway overpass, which collapsed onto the freeway below…causing all SORTS of bad news. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt. The driver has some 2nd degree burns on his hands, arms and face – but due to the time (4:30 am on Sunday morning) the freeway wasn’t packed full of people. I think they may have to increase the speed on that top freeway so cars will be able to make the jump… perhaps have some wings added?
Instead of trying to navigate through this mess – we went around the melted freeway and took the long way (San Mateo bridge) to the Oakland Airport. I’ll give the rest of my Napa Valley recap in a bit (i.e. tonight). I’ve got a crazy deadline I’m trying not to miss. In the meantime – here’s some random facts about melting temperatures, in farenheit. Engineers estimate the fireball on Sunday morning reached temperatures of about 3,000 degrees.
Molten lava: 3,140°
Iron melts: 2,797°
Steel melts: 2,750°
Gold melts: 1,947°
Silver melts: 1,763°
Steel loses half its rigidity: 1,000°
Lead melts: 622°
Water boils: 212°
Freeways Melt: eh, about 3,000 or something… scientific data is still scant on this particular point, but a recent study (see right) shows that is about right.
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Wow! That’s completely insane. Great story and pictures, though.
Comment by Janssen 2007 April 30 @ 11:07 amCooooool! I want to melt something!
Comment by Andrea Jolene 2007 April 30 @ 12:11 pmyeah I saw that story and couldn’t believe it! Glad you made it home okay though.
PS I am watching the PBS series on Mormons right now. Very informative and absolutely stunning landscapes of Utah.
Comment by janet 2007 April 30 @ 7:43 pmSo glad to hear that you made it home safe and sound, melty bridges and all.
Comment by Angela 2007 April 30 @ 7:59 pmbetter story than i got on sfgate! thanks for the update girl. hope you had a fabulous time in sf this weekend.
Comment by Erica 2007 May 1 @ 3:58 amWow, yeah, I saw that on the news! Crazy! I’m glad you got home ok! That must have been a b**h of a commute! My mom called me today to make sure I wasn’t near there…. I responded telling her that (1) I live in Santa Monica, which is six hours south of SF; plus I happened to be in San Diego this weekend which is an additional two hours south of Santa Monica! LOL California is a big state.
Comment by Brian Bosworth 2007 May 1 @ 11:57 amWow! I cannot believe that you were there! I heard about it all on the news and I am SO glad you made it back safely….makes a great story!
Comment by Vanessa 2007 May 2 @ 7:42 amAnd cool pictures!
Although it caused a huge inconvenience for you, it’s really cool that you were there so you can talk about it for the rest of your life. “Back in the day, I was a victim of a melted freeway…”
That’s awesome!
Comment by Brittany 2007 May 2 @ 9:55 am