Calls swamped Calif. dispatchers after tanker crash

By Matthias Gafni
Inside Bay Area (California)
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
All Rights Reserved

VALLEJO, Calif. — In the moments after Sunday’s tanker truck inferno, frantic 9-1-1 callers besieged dispatchers with desperate calls for help, dozens of incorrect locations and apocalyptic descriptions of flames, smoke and even rumors of dozens of injuries.

Audiotapes released Thursday revealed that dispatchers furiously tried to pinpoint the fire’s location, as callers struggled to make sense of the confusing MacArthur Maze’s many on- and offramps. To add to the chaos, many callers reported a building or buildings were afire.

Callers did make one thing clear — this wasn’t your average car fire.

One man told a dispatcher: “It’s like a car

fire, but it’s really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really big!”

CHP’s Golden Gate Division headquarters in Vallejo released a 30-minute audio tape of 9-1-1 residents’ calls and another of interagency chatter from the early morning blaze that collapsed a 250-yard section of the 510 freeway overpass onto I-880. The CHP redacted names and phone numbers of callers, and no times were included.

The Vallejo CHP center receives all Bay Area 9-1-1 cell phone calls.

Sorting it all out was no easy task as the tapes of 23 callers revealed.

The first comes in from a male caller.

“I want to report a big fire. A car got on the overpass of the Oakland west, I just saw the car got on fire,” he says calmly.

A confused dispatcher tries numerous times to get a location and eventually narrows it down to Emeryville near the Bay Bridge.

As more calls came in, the confusion intensifies.

“Oh, my God, it’s blowing up right now on the side of the freeway!” screamed the next female caller, phoning from Park Avenue in Emeryville, just blocks from the fire.

“Calm down, what is blowing up?” the dispatcher asks.

Asked if the fire is on the freeway, the female caller responds, “It doesn’t look like it, it looks like it’s a building.”

The CHP dispatcher sends a first unit to I-880 at Market Street.

“We’re getting suspicious calls of some sort of an explosion. Unknown if it occurred on the freeway or off the freeway,” she tells an officer.

Eventually dispatchers nail down that a tanker truck has exploded, but still have multiple locations on the Maze.

One female caller whose car was cascaded with ash as she drove over a nearby Maze overpass told a dispatcher, “I’m thinking that that fire is so big it’s going to melt that concrete and it’s going to be collapsing by tomorrow.”

When the dispatcher tells her firetrucks are on the way, she responds, “You might want to send as many as you got.”

At one point the tanker reports were coming in so often, dispatchers answered calls with, “Are you calling about the fire?”

Meanwhile CHP dispatchers contacted colleagues with Oakland police and fire, who also were frustrated in the varying reported locations.

“We have them in all areas. It’s crazy,” one CHP dispatcher says.

“I know totally different locations — it’s insane,” an Oakland fire dispatcher says.

Eventually, the first CHP officer arrives on the scene and reports to dispatch: “Looks like we have a large fire at the Maze. It appears to be in the brush off the freeway so far.”

As he gets closer, he quickly reports back, requesting all available units to respond.

“We’ll have to close the freeway,” he says.

Quickly, CHP officers decide to close the entire Maze, except for one route east and one route west not affected by the fire.

Another CHP officer asks dispatch to send a Caltrans engineer out to “verify if the structure’s safe once the fire’s out.”

Minutes later, a Caltrans official notifies Oakland officials the structure is “buckling.”

At the same time, an Oakland police representative informs the CHP that “it looks like we have a burn victim now.”

Tanker truck driver James Mosqueda, who received second degree burns never phoned 9-1-1, a CHP official said.

About then, dispatchers begin calling outlying agencies, such as San Francisco and Hayward, for assistance. The first accounts of the freeway collapsing trickle in:

Caller: “To add to that, the bridge collapsed.”

Dispatch: “The what?!”

Caller: “The bridge collapsed.”

Dispatch: “The Bay Bridge? Or the overpass?”

Caller: “The overpass collapsed.”

Dispatch: “Oh, my — OK, I’ll advise.”

A CHP officer on scene confirms the collapse.

A call from an Alameda County ambulance company driver enters the fray, asking about reports of possible victims, from three to 30 trapped underneath the collapse.

“Everybody so doesn’t know what’s going on,” he says.

“Our units are on scene,” CHP responds, “and there’s no visual of any bodies or parties.”

No one other than the truck driver was injured in the accident.