“We’re kind of in uncharted territory with this, but two to three days is the time frame I received.”Īn evacuation center was opened at Pinacate Middle School. “This hasn’t been experienced in quite some time, it’s rare,” Crater said. Officials have used drones to map the heat inside the rail car. The rail line for Metrolink was also shut down, Crater said.Ĭrater said the rail car was still too hot for anyone to get close to the tanker. Officials shut down the freeway south of Van Buren and north of Ramona Expressway, the Riverside County Fire Department posted on Twitter. That’s why we’re taking an abundance of caution with this.” They’ve also said due to the heat building in the car, that builds pressure and it could have a release, meaning some sort of violent explosion. “Typically, this material would stay at about 85 degrees and currently it’s at 323 degrees,” Crater said earlier in the day, Later, Torres said it had cooled to 304 degrees and was trending in the right direction.Ĭrater said he talked with experts throughout the night and was told, “This could resolve itself in two days, but it could get worse before it gets better. The tank had roughly 138,000 pounds of styrene inside, but it wasn’t known how much of it had leaked, Cal Fire spokesman Capt. The railroad spurs off in an area between businesses so the chemical can be unloaded to the businesses and they can make their products, Crater said. In all, more than 170 homes were evacuated. By Friday afternoon, authorities issued evacuation warnings were issued for the surrounding area north of Cajalco Road, east of Day Street, south of Avenue A and west of Heacock Street. Motorist Karen Johnson said it took her 45 minutes Friday to travel less than four miles northbound on the 215 between Nuevo Road and Ramona Expressway.Įvacuation orders were initially issued for an area north of Markham Street, east of Donna Lane, south of Nandina Avenue and west of Patterson Avenue. Kovaletz and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco urged motorists to find alternate routes and be patient if travel through the area is necessary. The plan is to wait until the overheated tanker cools to about 150 degrees, remove the other tankers and let the dangerous tanker cool further, Scoville said. One of them also contains styrene, but that tanker has not overheated, Scoville said. The tanker has been sitting on a siding since Aug. Pouring water on the tanker would not cool it down because it is insulated, officials said. “The contents are basically boiling in a closed container,” Torres said. The working theory, Scoville said, is that a stabilizing chemical injected to prevent the styrene from heating up failed at some point, resulting in a chemical reaction that caused the styrene to heat up to more than 300 degrees.
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