Everett inching back to normal after explosion

(George Rizer/Globe Staff)

An excavator knocked down one of the two triple-decker apartment houses damaged in Wednesday's fire.

By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

Traffic clogged Sweetser Circle in Everett during the morning rush, a welcome sign in a city paralyzed a day earlier by a gasoline tanker truck that crashed and sparked a massive fire that forced some 145 people to evacuate and destroyed two apartment houses.

Crews from the Department of Conservation and Recreation worked into the early morning repaving 200 feet of the traffic circle which had been charred and melted. The road reopened at about 1:30 a.m., almost exactly 24 hours after the fiery crash.

"They're done. It's amazing,” Everett Mayor John F. Hanlon said after visiting Sweetser Circle. "There was traffic running on it this morning. It was tied up, but it was tied up like a regular morning."

No major traffic issues or delays were reported after the traffic circle reopened, according to Jeff Larson, general manager of the Smart Route Systems, which monitors local traffic.

A tanker truck was speeding through the traffic circle Wednesday morning and rolled over, spilling 9,400 gallons of gasoline that ignited like a river of fire. The flames torched 21 cars and set ablaze a pair of three-deckers that were home to 49 people in 13 families.

State and federal environmental officials have been monitoring air quality at the crash site throughout the morning and have found no dangerous vapors, said Joseph Ferson, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

On Wednesday, officials detected gasoline fumes remaining near the crash site and also emanating from a storm drain at the intersection of Wellington Avenue and Kelvin Street, which is 1/4 mile from the traffic circle. Crews used pressure to suck fresh air into the storm drain and flush out the fumes. No vapors were detected today, Ferson said. Environmental officials also expect to receive test results this afternoon from water samples taken away from the crash site to determine if the storm runoff system has been contaminated.

State and local officials are continuing to work with the 13 families who lost their homes in the blaze. The Red Cross helped place at least nine of those families in hotels overnight, Hanlon said.

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