Monday, May 28, 2007
I left NJ at 12:30 pm, heading north and home.
At 1:45 I was on the NY Thruway, just south of the Sloatsburg/Suffern rest area, when traffic, which had been moving along nicely, skidded to a stop.
I figured there had to be an accident ahead or something, when suddenly there were flames shooting up, about five or six car lengths ahead of me, and huge billows of dense black smoke. A tractor-trailer had hit a minivan, and both of them were engulfed in flames. I mean burning hard and fast! I don't know what the trailer's load was, but every minute or so there was an explosion.
Emergency vehicles started arriving within minutes. Eventually there were three fire trucks (engines!), two heavy rescue trucks, one ambulance, a dozen or two police cars, and a passel of blue-blinker cars. (I was interested to see the firefighters putting on their turnout gear AFTER they arrived. We were required to have it on before leaving the firehouse (well, at least the boots and pants).)
Gawkers also arrived within minutes. People from way behind me were leaving their cars and walking forward, and being chased back by the police. Me, I was fussing because I wanted to get AWAY, not closer. Who knows what was in that smoke. Who knows what was going to explode next. I don't need poison gases or shrapnel.
They put the fire out pretty quickly - well, they turned the smoke from black to gray to white fairly quickly, and eventually the fire was out. I figured we'd be sitting there for hours, but they let us by after removing the minivan, only one hour and 25 minutes of sitting. I snapped some pictures, but they're not digital, so it'll be a while.
When I passed the tractor-trailer, there was nothing but framework left on all but one side. It must have been a really hot fire to do that so quickly. The tires had burned/melted into the pavement, and the trailer was listing.
That ONE ambulance worried me. With a more-than-fenders motor vehicle accident, even if the people involved are walking around insisting they're fine, the rule is to arrive in force, check them out, slap a collar on them, strap them down, and deliver them to an emergency room, ASAP. Resistance is futile. (Well, you can sign a form that releases the rescue crew from liability, but they won't tell you about it unless you kick and scream.) Only one ambulance arrived, for two vehicles, and it didn't leave for a long time. That doesn't sound good.
I hope there's something on the news tonight about it.
The ramp for the rest area was only a few hundred feet past the accident, so when they let us go, I decided to stop and get something to drink. But as I turned into the ramp, I realized that there's 50 miles of bumper-to-bumper pissed off traffic behind me, and SIX CARS ahead of me!
Ack!
I zoomed through the rest area and back onto the road, and hit the gas. I had an open road ahead of me, and I was going to take advantage of it!
On the OTHER side of the road, people had actually stopped on the sides and got out of their cars to watch the fire. So with them, and the usual slow downs, south-bound traffic was at a standstill. Just for fun, I set the trip odometer. It was 15 miles of stopped, and 11 more miles of slowed cars. Can't imagine what it must have been like behind me.
While watching the fire, I had called The Man (went straight to voice mail) and then called FirstWoman and talked with her a bit. Her home was on the way, so she invited me to stop in and trade weekend news, so I did.
Got home about 6 pm.
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Well, the news is on. The big story is a boating collision on the Hudson near Catskill. A woman was injured. Then the newsreader swung into blather about Memorial Day barbecues. With no irony.
I guess Suffern is too far south to interest Albany. Or there's no video, and therefore it's not news.
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