LEHI, Utah (ABC4 News)- Crews worked most of the day Saturday to clear I-15 in Lehi after a tanker carrying butane overturned on the road.
Southbound lanes opened just before 8 p.m. Northbound lanes opened shortly after.
“Butane is highly flammable, but not very reactive or explosive,” said Sgt. Brady Zaugg, Utah Highway Patrol
The tanker crashed in the northbound lanes around 10:40 a.m. near mile marker 282.
“The semi is a semi with doubles hauling butane. One of the trailers actually managed to put itself up under the concrete raised structure,” Sgt. Zaugg said.
A quarter-mile radius of the area was evacuated due to the potential hazards, Lehi City administrator Cameron Boyle said.
That included the nearby neighborhood of 900 West 2100 North, located on the other side of the sound barrier where the crash happened.
As a precaution, officers went door to door to evacuate residents.
“You have a police officer telling you it’s an emergency. I got my things together that were important to me right now and got moving,” resident Michael Cerveny said.
Margo Steele was also evacuated.
“It just seems unreal like okay they’re evacuating us,” she said. “I was at work. My husband was here, and he was told that there was a tanker that had tipped over on the freeway and they were worried about explosions.”
Residents were allowed to go to a shelter set up by the American Red Cross at a nearby church but were allowed back inside around 7:30 p.m.
The cause of this crash is still under investigation. Troopers say the driver was uninjured.
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