VIDEO: Chemical Spill Shuts Down Portion Of I-22 In Union County

UNION CO., Miss. (WCBI) – It was about 7 :20 am Wednesday morning when a tanker truck left the roadway, overturning in the median of I-22.

Hydrogen peroxide vapor was visible, and dangerous, because of its concentrated form.

“He’s hauling approximately 4,5oo  gallons of hydrogen peroxide at a 50 percent ratio, which is a pretty stout mixture of hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide at this mixture can burn your skin, infect your lungs, where you can’t breathe and can put eyes out,” said Curt Clayton, director of Union County Emergency Management Agency.

Clayton helped coordinate the response and cleanup. As soon as authorities determined that neither the truck’s driver, nor anyone else was injured, firefighters began dousing the leaking chemical with water to dilute it.

In the meantime, authorities shut down all four lanes of I-22 between Glenfield and Myrtle as environmental experts came up with a game plan to clean up the spill, offload the chemical into another tanker, and open the roadway.

“This is a major thoroughfare, a lot of economics involved in this, we are going to try and get this highway open as soon as possible for the citizens, and traveling public,” said Ernie Shirley, with Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

Traffic was diverted onto Highway 178. The two-lane highway is not built to handle a large influx of vehicles.

Randy Parks is owner of R and P Auto, and he says he has never seen Hwy 178 this congested.

“We never have continuous traffic running all day long, started about 9:00 this morning. so it hasn’t allowed us to get any new customers coming in for the day. Fortunately, we had some work that has kept us busy so far and it gets us more exposure, everybody driving by today, they know where we’re at for sure now,” Parks said.

Emergency officials warned motorists it would be an all-day cleanup. By 3:00 in the afternoon, Hwy 178 was still bumper-to-bumper, but overall things went well, no one was hurt, and potentially toxic chemicals were quickly contained.