thedrifter
07-26-07, 07:01 PM
Truck drops 172-ton ship engine, crushes cars
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 26, 2007 19:19:16 EDT
SAN DIEGO — Talk about a close call.
A 172-ton diesel engine destined for a Navy cargo ship under construction rolled off the back of a trailer early Thursday and crushed three cars parked outside a shipyard entrance, authorities said.
A woman waiting in one of the crushed vehicles narrowly escaped serious injury, police said.
“She’s awful lucky,” Sgt. Jeff Fellows of the San Diego Police Department’s traffic division said Thursday.
Accident investigators were studying the scene at 28th Street and Harbor Drive, one of the entrances to the General Dynamics/National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. shipyard. The site is near the commissary-exchange complex and is several blocks north of the heavily trafficked main gate into Naval Base San Diego.
The engine was being hauled on a flatbed trailer that “was negotiating around a street light, and the thing just, quote, fell off,” Fellows said.
The impact of the engine crushed the vehicles and cut a crater into the street and curb, damaging an underground water pipe. A heavy crane will be brought in to remove the engine and the vehicles — an undertaking that will close Harbor Drive to traffic for up to 48 hours, Fellows said — and the follow-on road and water pipe repair is expected to tie up traffic near that intersection for some time.
“It’s a big problem, and the city is going to get it done as soon as it’s possible,” he said.
The engine was being delivered for one of the dry cargo/ammunition ships — also known as T-AKE ships — under construction at the NASSCO shipyard, spokesman Karl Johnson said.
The cause of the accident is under investigation, Johnson said.
The shipyard, located along the waterfront next to the naval base, has been bustling with work on the T-AKE program. The company so far is on track to build nine of the 12 combat logistics ships eyed under the $3.7 billion T-AKE program.
Ellie
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 26, 2007 19:19:16 EDT
SAN DIEGO — Talk about a close call.
A 172-ton diesel engine destined for a Navy cargo ship under construction rolled off the back of a trailer early Thursday and crushed three cars parked outside a shipyard entrance, authorities said.
A woman waiting in one of the crushed vehicles narrowly escaped serious injury, police said.
“She’s awful lucky,” Sgt. Jeff Fellows of the San Diego Police Department’s traffic division said Thursday.
Accident investigators were studying the scene at 28th Street and Harbor Drive, one of the entrances to the General Dynamics/National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. shipyard. The site is near the commissary-exchange complex and is several blocks north of the heavily trafficked main gate into Naval Base San Diego.
The engine was being hauled on a flatbed trailer that “was negotiating around a street light, and the thing just, quote, fell off,” Fellows said.
The impact of the engine crushed the vehicles and cut a crater into the street and curb, damaging an underground water pipe. A heavy crane will be brought in to remove the engine and the vehicles — an undertaking that will close Harbor Drive to traffic for up to 48 hours, Fellows said — and the follow-on road and water pipe repair is expected to tie up traffic near that intersection for some time.
“It’s a big problem, and the city is going to get it done as soon as it’s possible,” he said.
The engine was being delivered for one of the dry cargo/ammunition ships — also known as T-AKE ships — under construction at the NASSCO shipyard, spokesman Karl Johnson said.
The cause of the accident is under investigation, Johnson said.
The shipyard, located along the waterfront next to the naval base, has been bustling with work on the T-AKE program. The company so far is on track to build nine of the 12 combat logistics ships eyed under the $3.7 billion T-AKE program.
Ellie