LEWISTOWN - An early morning accident along state Route 322, in the area of Jack's Creek and Valley Road on Friday snarled traffic for several hours and as daybreak came emergency responders were still cleaning up.
Nobody was injured when the tractor trailer's tire blew out causing it to careen into a guard rail and coming to rest on the side of the roadway. The tractor trailer was carrying bottle water.
Mifflin County Public Safety Director Phil Lucas said he had been on the scene throughout the night to assist the Hazmat team called into contain the tractor trailers diesel fuel tank which ruptured during the crash.
Lucas said there was minimal environmental impact from the diesel fuel, which did not flow into the neighboring trout stream.
"There was about 100 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled ... some of the contaminated soil will have to be removed," Lucas said.
"We feel fortunate there were no injuries, unfortunately the truck had severe damage," Lucas said.
Traffic had to be stopped intermittently during the clean up as another tractor trailer was brought in to offload the wrecked trailers water cargo.
Lucas said at around 10 a.m. that he hoped to have the road fully open to two lanes of traffic by noon on Friday.
Responding to the scene of the accident was the Mifflin County office of Public Safety, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Highland Park Fire Co., Fame EMS, Brooklyn Fire Co., City Hook & Ladder, Mifflin County Regional Police Department, Derry Township Fire Police and Eagle Towing and Recovery.
