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Nick Ut / AP
A California Highway Patrol car travels the wrong way in the westbound lanes of State Route 60 Freeway Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011, a day after a double gasoline tanker truck caught fire and seriously damaged the structure in Montebello, Calif., causing the shutdown of the entire freeway. Engineers determined early Thursday that the damaged steel and concrete made the eastern side of the bridge too dangerous to save. Concrete core samples were being examined to determine whether the western side would be pulled down as well.
These empty freeway shots are always kind of a stopper. The fire (below) is pretty dramatic as well.
AP reports:
MONTEBELLO, Calif. — For the second time in a year, Southern California motorists faced a freeway "Carmageddon." But as the evening commute loomed Thursday there was some good news: A 10-mile stretch of road closed by a gasoline tanker fire could reopen within a day.
In a region where accidents routinely clog rush-hour routes for hours, crews called in heavy tractors to quickly demolish part of a heavily damaged overpass on State Highway 60 east of downtown Los Angeles.
A double-tanker hauling nearly 9,000 gallons of gasoline went up in flames under the Paramount Boulevard bridge in Montebello, east of Los Angeles, on Wednesday. The driver was not hurt but the intense flames and heat melted the truck, cratered the road beneath it and cracked the concrete on the overpass so that chunks crashed onto the pavement below.
Nick Ut / AP
A burning double-tanker gasoline truck sends smoke skyward in Montebello, Calif, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011. Thousands of motorists were stuck on a 10-mile stretch of freeway near Los Angeles after the big-rig tanker truck burst into flames Wednesday. No one was injured.
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The photos would be more interesting if the bottom third were visable.
The flaming truck is a much more interesting photo than the lone police car on an empty freeway.