An 18-wheeler carrying 10,500 gallons of gasoline overturned on the Long Island Expressway in Jericho near the Route 106/107 Exits last Friday afternoon, August 21, spilling some of its contents onto the busy road and into nearby storm drains. The messy accident prompted a perilous, but successful containment effort that resulted in the evacuation of local homes and a nightmarish traffic jam that lasted for hours along alternate roadways.

The nine-hour operation to safeguard the area, clean the spillage and right the truck involved the cooperation of 14 fire departments, the Nassau County Police and Fire Marshal, and the State Department of Environmental Control, all acting under the authority the Jericho Fire Department and its on-site commander, First Assistant Chief David Ginzburg.

The most serious injury throughout the ordeal was to the operator of the truck, James Pastore, 56, who was briefly knocked unconscious from the crash and transported to Nassau County Medical Center in East Meadow where he was later released. However, several firefighters who were foaming the truck and retrieving the gasoline had to be treated for heat exhaustion after intense labor under a beating sun that turned the asphalt below a sizzling 116 degrees.

The high temperatures, the nearby traffic and the unstable gasoline were a potentially explosive mix which made quick reaction by workers so critical.

According to police and fire reports, the dangerous situation unfolded as Pastore, a Lake Ronkonkoma resident, drove the tanker, owned by Island Wide Transportation, from eastbound Route 106/107 onto the entrance ramp of Route 495, Exit 41, when, for reasons still unconfirmed, he lost control of the vehicle. Pastore has not been cited for any driving violations related to the mishap or otherwise.

The tanker fell onto its left side, busting open a valve four inches in diameter, through which gasoline was spilling.

Police Officer Brian Adams of the Nassau County Highway Patrol, who was traveling on Route 106/107, was one of the first to arrive on the scene. After assessing that the driver, who had been helped out of the cabin, was not severely injured, Adams, his feet submerged in gasoline, found the hatch that broke open and forced it back into place, stopping most of the profuse leakage. Smaller leaks of gas were still flowing from vent pipes.

Adams then climbed into the truck cabin and turned off the engine because, said the officer, "The thing with diesel engines is that if they suck in any gasoline vapors, they can go out of control, and they can explode."

The husband of Sonia Adams, and the father two children, Damian and Kristina, the Deer Park resident acted without hesitation, despite the threat to his safety. "It was a situation where you don't have time to think about the consequence of things going wrong," said Adams. "It's just something you have to do."

"He really did a great job," said Ginzburg. "He stood in the middle of gasoline on a very hot day...There were cars going by which easily could have ignited flames."

The police quickly seized control of local traffic, shutting down both sides of the LIE from exits 40 to 43, closing off the 106/107 overpass and blocking access to North and South Marginal Roads, where firefighters were using hydrants. Traveling up and down neighborhoods, the police strongly urged residents within several blocks of the LIE service roads to evacuate.

West Birchwood resident Libby Friedman was one of those who heeded the advice. Friedman, who lives with her husband, said that neighbors remained calm throughout the procedure and that the residents were satisfied with the clean-up effort. "The fire department and the police did a wonderful job of cleaning it up," she said.

"Of course," added Friedman, who tried to flee by car, "the traffic was forever."

Maybe even longer than that. The road blockages caused enormous delays on secondary roads Jericho Turnpike and Old Country Road. Exacerbating the situation was a coincidental major accident on the Northern State Parkway, which had to be blocked off, along with the Meadowbrook Parkway.

Jericho Fire Department members continually sprayed foam to keep the area cool and suppress the gasoline vapors. Meanwhile, hazardous material units from the Hicksville Fire Department, the Nassau County Fire Marshal and the Nassau County Police worked in conjunction to clean up the spill, and transfer the gas still left in the tanker to a new truck. "We were going to have to drill through the side of the tanker and suck the gas out," explained ex-Chief Owen McGee, director of public relations for the Hicksville Fire Department .

"We had to drill six three-inch holes in the side of the tanker as we were standing on top," said McGee. "There was considerable danger sitting on top of over 10,000 gallons of gas...It was something where you wanted to get in and get out."

The firemen used air drills and hole saws as their tools because they do not commonly induce sparks when applied. Water was sprayed around the drills to further reduce the chance of sparks. Then, using a suction tube, the gas was pumped through the holes into a second truck. Once all the gas was transferred, the damaged tanker was hoisted upright. "Nothing was really deemed safe until the truck was righted, and there was no more fluid," said Ginzburg. The truck was cleared away after 11 p.m.

All the while, New York State officials from the Department of Environmental Control were present, assessing the environmental damage caused by the spill, and trying to determine how much gasoline was lost. The police have reported only 200 gallons to have actually leaked out; however other reports have suggested several hundred more. Because so much of the gas entered the storm drains, it is difficult to determine an exact figure. The DEC did get positive readings from testing storm drains shortly after the accident, but no further information is available.

Ginzburg says that there is no reason for residents to fear a health risk from the spill. "We got deluged with phone calls. A lot of people were concerned with the water supply. There was no possibility of water contamination from the spill."

By late evening, state-employed Millrow Associates cleaned up the slushy mix of foam and gas along the expressway, and the LIE reopened at 11:30 p.m., the same time residents were told it was safe to return home. Other routes opened slightly earlier.

McGee said that the operation went very smoothly from start to finish. One reason that was so was because the members of the Hicksville HazMat unit, one of the few units of its kind to exist in a community fire department, has undergone training specifically for the incident they encountered. Amoco gas company had provided the unit years ago with a tanker truck, called the Sidekick, on which firemen were able to practice drilling holes.

According to McGee, the real thing "went off exactly the way it did in the scenario we practiced."

Other individuals, agencies and companies involved or standing by were the State Department of Transportation, the U.S. DOT, the Nassau County Field Communications Unit, County Executive Thomas Gulotta, Town of Oyster Bay officials and the fire departments of Plainview, Bethpage, East Norwich, East Meadow, Glenwood, Glen Cove, Syosset, Levittown, Carle Place, Westbury, Roslyn and Huntington.