Response to tanker accident showed nothing but strength

There is a series of television commercials for an insurance company in which a scruffy character who identifies himself as Mayhem takes pleasure in causing, well, mayhem. He would have been proud of himself Wednesday if he could have taken credit for overturning a gasoline tanker on the I-680 exit to the 711 connector.

Youngstown residents can be proud of something bigger and better, however. And that is the initial response of the city’s safety forces and the ancillary response of a dozen other local, state and federal agencies.

Fire Chief John J. O’Neill Jr. explains that because of the volume and variety of calls that Youngstown receives, first responders know almost instinctively when to begin calling on the resources they have available to them.

O’Neill said one of his first calls was to Paul Lyden of Lyden Oil Co. It wasn’t Lyden’s truck, but O’Neill said he knew Lyden’s expertise would prove invaluable. He was there in minutes, and helped ground the truck electrically so as to minimize the possibility of static electricity turning an accident into a disaster.

Rescue a priority

Meanwhile, three firefighters worked carefully with the Jaws of Life to extricate the truck’s driver, Albert Allen Jr. of New Vienna from the crumpled cab. O’Neill said one school of thought advises an overabundance of caution in such cases, but stabilizing the wreck could have taken hours during which the trapped driver could have died. He is in satisfactory condition in St. Elizabeth Health Center. While the rescuers did their work, eight other firefighters worked with shovels to divert a stream of leaking gasoline away from a nearby storm drain.

The truck was the focal point, but efforts spread out from the scene.

Cruisers from the Youngstown Police Department, Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Ohio State Highway Patrol, MillCreek MetroParks and the Liberty and Austintown departments set up road blocks and directed traffic. The Austintown Fire Department lent a hand. The fire department at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station responded with a truck equipped to spray fire retardant foam on the tanker.

Meanwhile Youngstown police officers and firefighters began working the nearby neighborhoods, urging people in areas where fumes might accumulate to evacuate. Fire hydrants in the neighborhoods and downtown were opened to dilute the gasoline that managed to get into the sewers.

Others responding included the Ohio Department of Transportation, Hazmat, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency, the Youngstown Public Works Department, the American Red Cross, and even the city school district, which made the Chaney building available to evacuees, though none needed it.

From start to finish

To the layman’s eye it looks like a textbook response, right up through the difficult work of tapping the tanker so that thousands of gallons of remaining gasoline could be safely pumped into a Lyden truck.

Part of the success might be attributed to experience. O’Neill notes the incident commander on the scene was Battalion Chief Richard Russo, who will retire next week after 37 years on the job. Russo, O’Neill and most of the firefighters on the scene also had special experience: They were on duty six years ago when another gasoline truck overturned, spilling 8.500 gallons.

Whatever combination of experience, cooperation, expertise and bravery was involved, those who responded won — and mayhem lost.

The commercial character Mayhem could be happy about one thing: The accident demonstrated why insurance is necessary. All that manpower comes at a cost.