ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605200048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FORK MOUNTAIN
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Lede
A tanker truck crashed and overturned in a nasty curve on U.S. 220 in Franklin County on Friday morning, spilling a dangerous chemical into a small creek.
Rescue workers rushed to the scene; residents near the crash as well as students at Henry Elementary School were evacuated.
A busy section of U.S. 220 near the Henry County line was shut down.
Hazardous material workers donned yellow fire suits and gas masks in 80-degree heat and labored feverishly to try to clean up the chemical - methyl ethyl ketone - which is highly flammable and is used as a paint thinner.
All the while, Wesley Brown continued to mow his yard just a half-mile from the crash. The commotion was nothing new to him.
Last October, another tanker truck crashed and exploded in the same spot. Some of its hazardous cargo of toluene also made it into the same creek, while the rest of it burned. Residents and students at Henry Elementary were evacuated that day, too.
"About every month or so, there's a wreck down there," Brown said. "I just stay at home."
Brown and others in the Fork Mountain community believe something needs to be done to fix the dangerous curve that drivers must negotiate while heading north toward Roanoke.
Faye Mason, Brown's neighbor and a school bus driver for 22 years, says the curve needs to be straightened. Just minutes before the October crash, she had pulled out onto 220 from the Virginia 605 crossover, just feet from where the accident occurred.
"A school bus is a sitting duck out there," Brown said.
School bus drivers are now traveling farther south on 220 to another crossover as a precaution, Mason said.
Doug Beatty, Franklin County resident engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation, said the curve is the most dangerous along the county's portion of U.S. 220.
However, Beatty said, a major project to straighten the curve isn't on the drawing board and probably won't be any time soon, because funding isn't available.
The curve is marked by flashing yellow lights and several oversize warning signs, and the speed limit is posted at 40 mph.
The number of warning lights may need to be doubled, Beatty said.
Statistics show 20 accidents were reported in and around the 605 crossover on 220 from 1990-95, said Eddie Wallace of the VDOT district office in Salem.
Of those, four involved tractor-trailer trucks, Wallace said. One truck driver was charged with driving under the influence, the other three with speeding.
At least two more tractor-trailer accidents have occurred at the curve this year.
For people trying to travel south on 220 Friday, accident data weren't the first thing on their minds.
Wesley Brown's wife, Hariet, was stopped in traffic with a load of groceries just a short distance from her house. Frustrated that she couldn't go anywhere, she finally cut a deal with a VDOT worker who let her park at a trash dump site near her home so she could walk to it.
A one-mile stretch of 220 was closed for seven hours; traffic was rerouted across Franklin County's back roads.
The 173 pupils at Henry Elementary School were taken to Ferrum Elementary for the day, just as they were after the crash in October. "We're kind of getting used to it," said Amy Pendleton, co-president of the Ferrum school's Parent-Teacher Organization, who was helping out at the school Friday.
For the driver of the tanker, the crash wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.
Dwight L. Dimery of Nichols, S.C., walked away from the wreck with no serious injuries. The crash caved in the driver's side of the truck's cab.
The driver of the tanker that crashed and burned in October was also from out of state, and also walked away from his wreck without serious injuries.
Dimery, 37, was driving for Nichols Transport, a small trucking company in Mullins, S.C.
He picked up the methyl ethyl ketone at a terminal in Wilmington, N.C., and was hauling it to Chemicals & Solvents Inc. in Roanoke, a company spokesman said.
Dimery sat in a state police car near the crash scene for most of the day and didn't have much to say.
Kathleen Elliott, wife of the owner of Nichols Transport, said Dimery was familiar with the road and had made the trip before.
Friday's was the most serious accident the company has had, Elliott said. The company hauls petrochemicals all over the East Coast from New Jersey to Miami.
The company's safety officer and another employee were on their way to Virginia, Elliott said.
It will be days before the spill's effect will be known.
The truck was full of 6,700 gallons of methyl ethyl ketone, and all but about 10 gallons leaked out, said Franklin County Fire Marshal Bennie Russell.
State and local hazardous materials teams from Franklin, Henry and Roanoke counties and the cities of Roanoke and Salem worked to clean up the mess.
Russell said there were reports of a small fish kill downstream. The creek is an unnamed tributary of Big Chestnut Creek, which flows into Leesville Lake, downstream from Smith Mountain Lake, by way of the Pigg River.
A state police investigation of the crash was continuing Friday.
Staff writer Greg Edwards contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. PAUL L. NEWBY II/Staff. Rescue vehicles blockby CNBnorthbound U.S. 220 Friday while a tow truck rights a tanker at
Virginia 605 in Franklin County. ARNE KUHLMANN/Staff. 2. (no
caption). color. 3. The leaking tanker straddles two drainage
ditches in the U.S.220 median Friday, giving its load of 6,700
gallons of methyl ethyl ketone a direct path to an unnamed small
creek. Graphic: Andrew Svec. color.