Chemical scare on QEW
Highway shut down in both directions as 2-km evacuation zone ordered
Niagara Regional Police and St. Catharines firefighters said they did not detect any sign a transport truck that crashed on the QEW Tuesday afternoon leaked any of its hazardous cargo.
As of 6:10 p.m. Tuesday, Const. Rich Gadreau said air tests at the scene of the crash yielded no traces of phosphine, the flammable gas being carried on the truck.
However, Gadreau said police were still asking people within a two-kilometre radius of the crash on the QEW near Martindale Road to take shelter where they were as a precautionary measure.
“Close your windows and cut off any external air supply,” Gadreau said. Although no leak of the dangerous gas was detected, Gadreau said the transport trailer was in a precarious position — perched on the median between the eastbound and westbound lanes of the highway — which meant the risk of a leak existed.
Emergency crews were concerned a leak might happen when they attempted to move the vehicle.
Phosphine is the same gas that caused 21 Chinese sailors to fall ill after a spill on their ship in Lake Erie in 2010.
OPP Sgt, Kerry Schmidt said the truck rolled over on the highway due to a mechanical failure. The driver was not injured.
Police shut down the highway between Ontario Street and Highway 406 to clear the area for hazmat crews to remove the truck. The crash happened just as Niagara was heading into rush hour, and traffic soon clogged most of the side streets and major arteries surrounding the highway.
Originally, police evacuated a 1.2km area around the crash, but an hour later expanded it to 2 km.
While police were telling residents to stay indoors, businesses were being actively evacuated.
Among the areas evacuated were business offices on Corporate Park Drive, which is just south of the QEW and runs east off Martindale Road.
A witness at the scene said traffic in the area was so bad during the evacuation, police had workers walk out of the evacuation zone and leave their cars behind.
Sara Read-Davidson, an employee at Meridian Credit Union’s corporate office on Corporate Park Drive, said staff were asked to leave work by management at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
“We got in our cars but there was so much traffic we weren’t moving anywhere,” she said. “The police came around and told us to leave our cars and start walking.”
As of press time, the truck had not been cleared from the highway, and the situation was still developing.