The commercial truck driver killed in Sunday morning’s crash with a train near the St. John’s Bridge was identified as a Vancouver man.
Andrew John Lambert, 41, was driving a semi-truck full of gasoline west on Highway 30 when the rig veered off the road, according to the Portland Police Bureau. The truck went down an embankment, flipped, then collided with a power pole and the train parked on the tracks below the roadway, police said.
Investigators believe that Lambert most likely died immediately, police said.
Authorities said that Lambert was an employee at Kenan Advantage Group, a trucking company based in Ohio. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
The St. Johns Bridge, which was closed Sunday because of the crash, but has since reopened in both directions in Northwest Portland.
Portland Fire and Rescue reports that the truck ran off the road and collided with eight parked rail cars. After extinguishing the fire, firefighters determined that the driver of the tractor-trailer was deceased. One rail car was badly damaged.
The rail cars were carrying hot asphalt. The thick, black smoke that blanketed the area was a result of the fuel truck burning, as the asphalt on the rail cars didn’t burn or leak, according to Portland Fire & Rescue.
The explosion happened about 400 feet from NW Natural’s Liquefied Natural Gas storage tank, said the Willamette Riverkeeper.
Earlier Sunday morning emergency officials issued a shelter in place order. “The smoke plume, we were concerned about people breathing that,” said Portland Fire and Rescue spokesman Terry Foster. “That can be irritating to the lungs and we wanted people to stay indoors. And we were unsure how long it would take to control this fire.”
