Hwy. C in Ste. Genevieve County shut down after crash involving hazardous liquid

A semi carrying extremely hazardous materials has crashed here on Highway C in Ste. Genevieve county, residents in the area have been evacuated.

“We’re making sure between us and highway patrol that nobody’s driving through the area, the area has been shut down.” Says, Jason Schott, the Chief Deputy for the Ste. Genevieve Sheriff’s Department, he adds there are no injuries that took place, and the evacuation has been lifted.

Schott adds, “Hazardous material travels all over the U.S. all day long, every day, where it was going to over in Cadet, if you Google and put into your GPS there’s three different routes you can get to, one of those routes is Highway C, why you would cut around Highway C, only the driver knows why, but it’s one route that you can take.”

The semi-truck contained phosphorus trichloride.

If spilled and connected with the water would ‘react violently’ and cause severe environmental issues says, Weingarten Volunteer Firefighter, Tim Heller.

Now comes removing the container.

Heller says, “As we speak right now, we are currently trying to move the tractor from the trailer, we’ll get that out of the way and then we will try to lift the container and put it on a truck and get it out of here.”

According to Heller if inhaled the liquid can cause breathing issues.

Felix Meyer is the Emergency Management Director, He says, the liquid can be absorbed through the skin meaning dangerous conditions for crews. “We’re taking all the precautions that we can. It’s taken awhile because we’ve taken all the safety precautions that we can, they were going to attempt to offload it, and they couldn’t find a suitable container, so now they’re going to try to take the whole thing.”

A no-fly zone was initiated in case of a release of toxins during clean up and over 150 people were evacuated from the area.