By:Elizabeth Sagarin
Tipped-over truck wreaks havoc on LIRR
A tanker truck containing 11,000 gallons of gasoline tipped onto its side and smashed into a cement retaining wall in Oceanside on Tuesday, cutting off train service from Long Beach throughout the morning rush hour.
Service was restored between Long Beach and Lynbrook shortly after 2 p.m., hours after hundreds of morning commuters had to be bused to other stations. Long Beach officials put four City buses to work starting at 6:45 a.m., taking passengers to the Freeport train station. The buses continued to run for most of the morning before officials could narrow the service down to two vehicles, while the MTA also provided bus service.
"We have an average LIRR ridership of 1,000 passengers a day. It would have been complete chaos if that many people were stranded with no way to get to work," said Eugene Cammarato, the City's director of operations.
Approximately 4,000 gallons of gasoline spilled from the two severed compartments of the tanker after the early morning wreck, according to Charles T. Hamilton, regional supervisor of natural resources for the Department of Environmental Conservation. Hamilton said the leak had been contained and would not pose a significant threat to the environment, including Reynolds Channel. However, shoreline surveys would be ongoing.
The gasoline traveled nearly 500 feet from the nearby railroad tracks. Chief Ed Scharberg of the Oceanside Fire Department, who was the first to arrive on the scene, determined that train service should be delayed until vapors from the gasoline were at levels that couldn't ignite from sparks created by passing trains.
"With 11,000 gallons of product and working tanks in the area we couldn't risk a flash fire," he said. "I know there were a lot of displaced commuters but I'd rather somebody late for work than a major catastrophe."
The incident occurred only minutes after the driver of the Getty Petroleum truck, Gregory Ryan, finished filling the tanker up at the RAD Energy terminal on Hampton Road. He was traveling southeast on Hampton when he tried to make a left turn onto the steep incline at the base of Daly. Ryan then lost control of the vehicle and both the cab and the tanker turned onto their side. No other vehicles were involved and the driver was not injured, according to Sergeant Frank Sabella of the Fourth Precinct.
In addition to the City, the MTA provided buses for commuters traveling on the Long Beach line to Freeport and Rockville Centre. Some commuters getting of the trains during the afternoon rush hour had several choice words to describe their morning, a setiment shared by Oceanside riders. Anne Shames, a commuter who normally takes the 7:15 a.m. train from Oceanside, characterized the situation as "horrible." Not seeing any buses, she caught a ride with the sister of a fellow commuter to another station.
Karen Nicholas' husband dropped her off at the Oceanside station to catch an 8 a.m. train and no buses were there at that time either, she said. Just before her husband left, a friend called her on her cell phone and told her that train service was held up. "I would have been stuck here waiting because I had no idea," she said.
According to a police officer at the scene of the accident, who declined to give his name, Ryan stated that he was traveling at only 10 miles an hour and he has been a truck driver for 24 years.
According to Scharfberg, Ryan appeared to be "shaken up." He was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital and released a few hours later, according to the police officer.
The exact cause of the accident is being investigated by police officers from the Motor Carrier Safety Unit.
After the remaining gasoline in the tanker was pumped to another truck and enough foam was laid down to keep vapors from the escaped gasoline at a safe level, Scharfberg gave the okay to restore train service around 2 p.m.
The tanker was put upright and hauled away. Police barricades were removed from the street around 6 p.m.
Nearly all of the gasoline that escaped from the ruptured tanker leaked into a storm drain located a few feet downhill from the overturned tanker, according to Hamilton, the DEC representative on the scene. The drain, which washes out to Hogs Island Channel, was fitted with two booms, barriers, and sand bags to deter the fuel from flowing into the channel. He was fairly confident that the
contamination would remain in the drain and could be easily vacuumed out.
Tyree Environmental Technologies in Farmingdale was contracted to do the clean up, which the DEC will oversee. Specialized trucks designed to remove 2,000 gallons of material at a time were deployed overnight to pump the gasoline from the drain. Clean up was estimated to be completed by early to mid-afternoon Wednesday.
A shoreline survey conducted from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday concluded that gasoline hadn't reached the canal and the area's water foul didn't appear to be affected, but surveys will continue in order to make sure wild life that inhabit the remaining marshland surrounding industrialized area is healthy. "This is a very productive site with a lot of shore birds," Hamilton said.
James Geraci, the assistant terminal manager for Getty Petroleum, wasn't willing to speculate on the cause of the accident. "We absolutely didn't see it coming," he said.
