Update 1pm
Officials announced the road has been reopened. Some work will require reducing traffic to a single lane through the day.
Original Story
This morning, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) provided details of their investigation of yesterday’s semi truck roll over incident on Hovander Road, north of W Smith Road.
According to an email from WCSO Sargeant Kevin McFadden,
[The] Driver was an inexperienced operator who just received his CDL and was from out of state. Not being from the area he was using a mapping program to find Intalco as they were delivering a load of aluminum bars on a 40 ft flat bed trailer. The load was approx 48,000 lbs.
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As the semi was west bound on W Smith Rd, it came to a sharp right turn onto Hovander Rd. The Driver stated there was incoming traffic so he didn’t move into the oncoming lane to make room for the turn. Failing to do so caused the trailers right rear tires to start going off the shoulder. As the driver continued around the corner the trailer went further off the shoulder and began to sink in the muddy shoulder until the trailer was pulled into a water filled ditch. The weight of the load caused the trailer to begin to roll over onto its top. This eventually caused the truck to also flip over, finally coming to a rest completely upside down and partially submerged under water.
Vehicle was occupied by the inexperienced driver and his training partner who was in the sleeper at the time. The partner in the sleeper complained of pain to his wrist but denied medical attention.
The vehicle was carrying approx 100 gallons of diesel fuel in its tanks which began to leak after the truck rolled. Fire personnel on scene immediately notified Dept of Ecology and began laying absorbent pads. Additional response by Whatcom County Public Works along with WA State Dept. of Ecology staff shut down the road and worked to block culverts to stop the diesel spread. Also on scene to assist was Ferndale Public Works and Ferndale Police. (Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office Division of Emergency Management was notified and coordinated with WA State).
Once the immediate risk associated with the spill was contained, commercial tow trucks worked to remove the submerged truck and trailer. In order to remove the trailer, the load had to be cut free. The road will remain closed until a commercial spill response team can arrive to do a cleanup of the diesel and arrangements made to remove the 6 submerged aluminum bars estimated at 7800 lbs apiece. The shoulder of the roadway will also have to be repaired.
The driver of the semi was issued a traffic infraction for “Driving with wheels off roadway” A WSP Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Officer was on scene to determine if there were any commercial license violations or obvious equipment violations which did not appear to be the case.
WCSO Undersheriff Jeff Parks also said this morning, “Work will continue in the area today.”