Remembering the I-287 propane tanker crash 30 years later. 'Thought it was a nuclear bomb'

They remember the explosion, the loudest they’d ever heard.

They remember the after-midnight sky glowing bright orange, fueled by a 300-foot fireball.

They remember the sound, the heat, the color, the chaos.

They all remember.

No one who lived through it would forget July 27, 1994 — the night 30 years ago when a truck struck the Grant Avenue overpass on Interstate 287 and sent its 43-foot propane tank spinning off like a missile into the White Plains night, sparking fires in neighborhoods on both sides of the highway and on the roadway itself.

Nineteen residents and four firefighters were injured when the suburban streetscape was turned into something out of Dante: 13 of the injuries were minor; four moderate; four serious and two critical.

But the accident delivered one remarkable reality that had a man of science considering the divine.

"To have only one death with an accident of this magnitude should cause us all to go to church," Dr. Roger Salisbury, the chief of the burn unit at Westchester County Medical Center, said at the time.

A massive debris field in White Plains

The tanker truck’s sleep-deprived driver was the only person to die in the crash, but at first, police couldn’t find Peter Conway. The 23-year-old was thrown clear of the wreckage, as if he were “shot out of a cannon” the police chief said. His body was found 1,500 feet from the crash site.

More than 150 firefighters converged on the scene. There was plenty of fire to fight. Parts of the truck were sent in all directions, a huge debris field, all of it burning.

• The tractor continued down I-287, coming to rest 400 feet to the east, on fire.
• The ruptured tank rocketed 300 feet to the north, shearing off the back of a house on Clinton Street and tearing the outer wall off the home next door, making it look like a dollhouse, its floors and contents visible from the street. Burning.
• The tanker's rear wheels flew nearly 600 feet south and west, crushing a garage south of the highway.
• The fireball set ablaze homes on Grant Avenue and a garage on Lenox Avenue.
• The overpass buckled, one of its four major support columns shorn off. That stretch of 287 would be shut for nearly 24 hours. It would be 15 years before the Grant Avenue bridge was open to two-way traffic.

'Let me just run downstairs and die with my family'

Laura Rúa Reidy was 25 then, watching TV in her attic apartment at 12:28 a.m., when her home was jolted and all she saw was bright orange.

“I felt as though the sun stopped by my house,” she said years later. Knocked over in a shower of shattering glass, she got up and ran to the attic stairs, hoping to reach her father and stepmother in their bedroom two floors below.

“I grew up very Catholic and I thought, 'Oh, Geez! It's the end of the world!'" she said. "'Let me just run downstairs and die with my family.'”

She made it down the attic stairs, but had to jump when she neared the bottom. When she arrived at the front of the house, she saw her family emerging.

“I thought it was a nuclear bomb, I really did,” she said. “There was no other explanation for me at that time because of the orange and the explosion.”

Next door on Clinton Street, Ed and Michele Brunner had one way to safety from their second-floor bedroom. They climbed out a window and slid down the tank that had done all the damage.

Across the highway, the critically injured on Grant Avenue included Analuz Espinal, who was 7 months pregnant on that unforgettable night. Later that day, she gave birth to her third child, while on a respirator. Her burns were so severe she could not hold her newborn son, Juan Leandro, who weighed just 4 pounds, 6 ounces.

They still live in White Plains, on a quiet street about 2 miles from Grant Avenue. He's about to mark his 30th birthday.

Neighbors assist with emergency response

Those who lived through that night recall the massive response by first responders, but they recall something else.

Neighbors helped firefighters stretch hoses on Clinton Street. They dabbed cooling water on their traumatized neighbors on Grant Avenue.

There was flame and smoke and chaos and confusion in those two ravaged neighborhoods, and it would take years for them to recover. But people still remember neighbors helping neighbors through that night that no one will forget.

Reach Peter D. Kramer at pkramer@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Remembering the I-287 propane tanker crash 30 years later. 'Thought it was a nuclear bomb'