A look back -- Jerry Person

It’s hard to believe that summer is nearly upon us. Of course, with

summer comes traffic jams. If you were Downtown for Memorial Day weekend

then you know what I mean -- one long sea of cars as far as the eye could

see.

And with summer traffic comes the accidents -- not just minor fender

benders but the more serious kind. This week we are going back to look at

a few accidents that happened in the unincorporated areas around

Huntington Beach over the years.

Our first incident happened in the Sunset Beach area and involved a

pre-World War II truck owned by the Reeves Rubber Company.

It was March of 1946 and the war was barely over when John Olsen was

driving his heavily loaded truck along Pacific Coast Highway. As his

truck neared 9th Street his front tire blew out.

Remember, there had been a rubber shortage because of the war and

people were driving on their tires much longer then it was safe to do.

Olsen’s truck shot across the highway just missing two cars, a bus,

telephone poles and guy wires.

The accident sent the side of Olsen’s truck into a telephone pole and

scattered rubber pieces across the highway.

Olsen’s truck resembled a wartime disaster as it rested against that

pole. But it was either the skill of Olsen’s driving or just plain good

fortune that kept Olsen from being hurt.

At about this same time in another part of the unincorporated county,

a 16-year-old boy was riding in a car near Airplane Hill (Goldenwest

Street and Ellis Avenue) when the driver lost control and overturned the

car, seriously injuring the boy.

Airplane Hill has been the seen of numerous accidents over the years

and our next accident took place there on April 1, 1938 and has been

etched in the memories of those who witnessed it that night.

When Huntington Beach resident Anna Capocciama was in the seventh

grade her family lived out near the Airplane Hill area.

She recalls being awoken one night at 10:45 p.m. by a load noise.

Getting dressed, Capocciama walked over to the source of the noise and

saw a large truck and trailer on fire. Farmers and their families were

watching the fire from both sides of the hill.

What awoke Capocciama at so late an hour was that Lester Luscomb was

attempting to drive his truck and trailer down Airplane Hill’s 30 percent

grade. Luscomb was on Ellis Avenue heading his rig toward Goldenwest

Street. The road was wet that evening and because of the steep incline of

the road, gasoline began spilling out over Luscomb’s trailer.

Luscomb, who lived in Huntington Park, was unfamiliar with the area

when he picked up 6,100 gallons of highly explosive gasoline from a

storage tank nearby.

Friction sparks produced by the truck’s dog chain had ignited the

spilling gasoline.

By now more locals had come to see the fire as people still do today.

One of the farmers out there went over to the Bolsa tile factory at

Gothard Street and Ellis Avenue to telephone the Orange County Fire

Department, as this area was still in the county and not part of

Huntington Beach yet.

For 40 minutes people watched the flames leap skyward. And then it

happened.

The main tank exploded in one massive blast sending flames high above

Airplane Hill. The explosion swept people to the ground as if they were

matchsticks, while others ran for their very lives trying to escape the

inferno that lit the nighttime sky.

The explosion blew the tanker 100 feet into the air, landing some 700

feet from where it had been.

Capocciama remembers those vivid scenes as if they happened yesterday.

Standard Oil Company worker Ebert Nicholson had his clothes ripped off

his body by the explosion. A call was made to Huntington Beach doctors to

come out and treat the helpless onlookers who were suffering with second-

and third-degree burns.

When county firefighters arrived they began pouring water onto nearby

oil tanks and rigs in an effort to keep them from catching fire. They

worked long and hard in fighting that blaze until the last sparks were

extinguished.

Nearly 20 people were burned but there was not one fatality that

night. That may be the worst tragedy that Huntington Beach has ever

witnessed.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.