Remembering 189 Caltrans workers killed on state roads
Editor's Note: Last week Caltrans held a memorial service for the 189 workers killed on state roads. Dozens more have been injured. Today is the first of two columns on these tragic events, written by Russell Snyder, a former Caltrans employee and now the executive director of the California Asphalt Pavement Association.
Here's a somber reminder of the importance of safe highway work zones:
When I started out as a newspaper reporter, just of college in the 1980s, I was assigned to the “cop beat,” covering crime, fires, disasters and all other mayhem in the Los Angeles area. Drug and gang wars were raging, so there was no shortage of bad news to impart to readers. Often, when I interviewed family and friends of victims, it was not lost on me that I was probably talking to them during the worst day of their lives.
I joined Caltrans as a public information officer in 1991 and thought I had left that unpleasant duty behind. I couldn't have been more wrong.
I soon learned of the perils faced by workers conducting construction and maintenance on the state highway system, where seemingly every other driver is in a hurry and not paying attention.
In 1992, I was called out to the scene of the death of a contractor employee on a project that was part of the massive 17-mile Century Freeway under construction. Minutes after the coroner's van took the worker's body away, I got a call from the office: There had been a bad crash on the Pomona Freeway and Caltrans workers were involved.
By the time I got there, TV helicopters were circulating overhead, capturing images of first responders combing through the obliterated vehicles below. As I stood a few feet away from the lifeless body of maintenance worker Jerry Alcala, my cellphone rang. It was a member of his family, a brother-in-law, I think.
They knew that Alcala worked in that area. They couldn't get any information, so the call was routed to me. I felt like I was punched in the gut. I did not have the heart, nor the authority, to notify them of the awful news. I stammered and eventually said someone would be in contact with them shortly. I could hear crying in the background. I'll never forget the last words I heard from the caller. “We're trying to be strong. We're trying to be strong.”
On Tuesday, there will be more about the recent memorial and about Juan Thome, who worked for a time for Caltrans in the Bay Area before he settled in Southern California. He was killed when hit by a truck on the Pomona Freeway.