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.
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