I've been thinking about the fiery crash on I-80/I-880 Sunday near Oakland, California. According to news reports, a tanker truck carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline overturned and burst into flames, causing two sections of freeway overpass to collapse within minutes:
Two connector ramps of the Bay Bridge MacArthur Maze (map), located near Emeryville, collapsed Sunday morning after an explosion and fire.
Heat from the fire, which reached temperatures estimated at up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, caused the metal bolts and girders on the highway connector ramp above to melt. The overpass then gave way and collapsed.
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NBC 7/39's sister station in San Jose talked to a witness of the fire. Paul Kochli said he was driving from San Francisco to Napa at around 4 a.m. when he noticed a huge plume of smoke and a mushroom cloud. Kochli said he recorded 59 seconds of the fire. He said the overpass had already collapsed by 4:05 a.m.
Other witnesses reported flames from the blaze reached up to 200 feet high.
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Aerial views showed at least two sections of the maze totaling about 250 yards in length had collapsed.
(Note: The video below isn't the Kochli video mentioned in the story. This one's from a fellow called baconmonkey, and it's shot on a Canon high-definition camcorder — not that YouTube even vaguely approximates high-def, but it's well worth watching.)
Well, the official story says heat from the fire collapsed the overpasses. But of course, we know from concerned scientists and engineers who studied the World Trade Center collapses that fires can't melt steel — that a chemical explosion is required. Ask Rosie! Or check out the experiment by a member of the reality-based community that I wrote about last summer:
I think that the freeway overpass was just as likely to have been brought down by controlled demolition as the World Trade Center buildings. The Governor of California, the President of the United States, and Karl Rove are all Republicans — coincidence? Do we know what ties exist between Dick Cheney, Halliburton, and the California highway construction industry? Why did Caltrans rush its "demolition contractor" onto the site within hours to remove the evidence? Doesn't it strain credulity to believe that the driver walked away from the inferno and caught a cab to the hospital?
These and other questions demand answers! We need a Freeway Truth Movement, with Californians for Freeway Truth, Scholars for Freeway Truth, Press for Freeway Truth, Truck Drivers for Freeway Truth, Freeway Truth Radio, and a whole host of other like-minded organizations committed to uncovering the real truth behind the so-called tanker truck accident.