Propane tanker flips, causes hours of delays

A 18-wheeler hauling thousands of gallons of propane tipped over at the intersection of Ranch Road 12 and Winter’s Mill last week.

The large amount of propane made turning the tanker upright a precarious situation.

“If that thing would have gone off, it would have left a crater about a quarter mile wide,” Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos said.

Initially, traffic was redirected within about a mile radius until the fire department was able to confirm that the tanker wasn’t leaking propane.

“Then we just had to keep cars away to make sure somebody didn’t accidently run into it,” Czichos said. The perimeter shrank but traffic was still diverted for hours directly surrounding the accident.

The accident initially occurred because the 18-wheeler was trying to make a wide turn on to Ranch Road 12 but a car on Ranch Road 12 in the turn lane forced it to make a sharper turn. Four wheels slipped off the edge of the road and the weight of the tanker flipped it over.

The process for getting the truck upright was significant.

“You couldn’t do it real quick,” Czichos said. “The think it weighted 86,300 pounds. It took 3 wreckers. A car you just flip it and bounce it on the tires. You can’t do that with this. You didn’t want to do anything to rupture the tank. You had to get the right lifting points and not twist the tank and it took a lot of precision work to get it in the right spot and set it down gently.”

Overall, the process took about eight hours. Crews were on scene from the time of the call just before 4 p.m. to after 11 p.m., but in the end, the potentially dangerous situation amounted to nothing more than a large traffic detour.