Today started out as any other day in Indianapolis in the fall... a little cool, and little dreary, and not too much going on. Until about 10:30am on the northeast side, and one of the busiest interchanges in the city... I-69 and I-465. A tanker truck carrying liquid propane took the ramp from southbound I-69 to southbound I-465 a little too fast. I know this ramp well... if you don't know the area, this is an easy thing to do. I've even had to check myself a couple of times when I'm in a rush! Well, the tanker wasn't able to correct himself. He rolled over. And an explosion happened!!
This is not an exaggeration. it was literally a mushroom cloud of fire at least 100' in the air! And it burned HOT! It melted the fronts of cars stopped a couple hundred feet away. The truck, itself, was incinerated to the frame! Fortunately, some good samaritans pulled the driver away in time. Unfortunately, this happened under a bridge, damaging not only the road it rolled over on, but the bridge above it. And the billboards on either side of it, and a cell phone tower, and the train tracks aside of it.
I was at work when this all happened. But it made the airwaves quickly. And the internet, of course. One of my friends just missed it - he drove through that area just 30 seconds earlier and saw the explosion behind him. The witnesses whose stories are coming out are insane. Even more so, though... it's insane that no one was killed. There were injuries, but no deaths. It could've been so much worse!
I know my commute is going to suck for at least a few days, if not weeks now. Luckily I won't have to deal with it tonight - I have softball and will just stay downtown at Eric's afterwards. But I have to go home sometime.
View this gallery at The Indianapolis Star: I-69 & I-465 explosion from readers and Star staff
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