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About St. Johns review. (Saint Johns, Or.) 1904-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 2015)
AND....The 2015 WINNER of the Review’s St. Johns Bridge picture contest is: Paulette Porter with this stunning photo! North Portland’s Community Newspaper - Bi-Weekly - PO Box 83068, Port. OR 97283 503-283-5086 Highway 30 crash sends plumes of black smoke over St. Johns By Barbara Quinn The Review T St Johns Review PO Box 83068 Port. OR 97238 #26 DEC 25, 2015 he crash of a semi truck carrying gasoline on High- way 30 mobilized Portland Fire & Rescue, local police and sent an alarming cloud of black smoke high above the St. Johns neighborhood on the morning of Sunday, December 13. According to a police report, the truck ran off the road just south of the St. Johns Bridge around 8:45am. It went down an embankment, collided with a power pole, fl ipped and plowed into parked train tankers carrying asphalt. The truck driver died at the scene. The truck’s fuel load spilled and ignited under the train cars causing a 3-alarm fi re with fl ames shooting as high at 40 feet. St. Johns’ hillside residents and Cathedral Park visitors re- ported hearing several explosions and witnessed the massive fl ames across the river. Firefi ghters bat- tled the blaze for over an hour be- fore gaining control. As far as can be ascertained, news of the incident was not made public for over an hour, though some St. Johns residents received reverse 911 calls advising them to stay inside due to the then un- known nature of the burning chemical. In spite of media reports that the community was advised to “hunker down,” the majority of 515-840 neighborhood residents were not informed about possible pollution from the unknown burning sub- stance. Instead, residents carried on regular Sunday morning activi- ties while prevailing winds carried dense smoke directly overhead starting at 9am. In fact the neighborhood was unusually active with the Holiday Marathon runners on Willamette Blvd. and onlookers cheering them on. Some runners reported breath- ing diffi culties and about 100 were picked up and removed by school buses around 11:30 am as report- ed by USA Today (Deadly crash sparks Ore. train tanker fi re, Dec. 13, USA Today Network). The marathon was subsequently can- celed due to air pollution. A non-emergency line supervi- sor said the emergency notifi ca- tion system is limited to residents within a certain radius of an in- cident to keep the system from being overwhelmed. He also said only residents with landlines are automatically notifi ed of emer- gencies with reverse 911 calls. “Hwy 30 Fire” Continued on Page 4 Neighbors were frightened when they saw this huge plume of smoke coming their way. They didn’t know what was causing it, how bad it was going to get, or if the smoke was toxic. More Photos on Pages 4 & 5 reviewnewspaper@gmail.com WEB: www.stjohnsreview.com