A collision on River Road in Hahnville between a dump truck carrying sand and a 1999 Crown Victoria took at least six hours to clear up last week. That’s because the overturned truck began leaking diesel from its fuel tank and dumping sand from the bed of the truck into a ditch and culvert right in front of the Hahnville Post Office.
The Hahnville Fire Department, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, All Safe Hazard Disposal Company, the Louisiana State Police Troop B Office, and Jake’s Towing worked to cleanup the accident the morning of Oct. 17 and kept working until later that day.
Hahnville Fire Chief Reginald Gaubert says his role was to make sure that nothing caught on fire.
“The vehicle was leaking diesel,” he said. “So we responded to the call to make sure that the accident didn’t spark a fire.”
LDEQ was called out to the scene to make sure the sand was removed and disposed of properly.
“We brought our wrecker out to recover the vehicle from the ditch, but it was a tricky job, because diesel was leaking into the culvert,” Clint Jacob, a spokesman for Luling-based Jake’s Towing, said. “Both vehicles were brought to our location in Luling and are a total loss.”
Jacob says recovering the upturned truck while it was on its side spilling sand and leaking diesel wasn’t the difficult part for his company.
“We had both vehicles out of there fairly quickly,” Jacobs said. “We responded within 15 minutes and the vehicle was recovered out of the ditch within 30 minutes.”
Jacob says waiting for the other state agencies to respond to the call took the longest.
“There was an older gentleman driving the Crown Victoria,” he said. “The 18-wheeler nipped him, but it’s amazing what a little nip can do.”
A spokesman from the Louisiana State Troopers Office says nobody was hurt in the accident and the driver of the Crown Victoria was given a citation for failure to yield.
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