Cement truck clean-up starts

The northbound San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road offramp at Newport Coast Drive will be closed from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday as crews work to clear the wreckage from a March 26 cement truck accident.

The clean-up is quite an undertaking, as the cement truck that barreled through the offramp guardrail and down a 75-foot hill was actually mixing cement at the time, California Highway Patrol officials said after the crash.

Tow trucks managed to pull the body of the truck up, but not the bowl, which weighs tons. The company that owns the truck will go to the site, drill holes in it and pull it up with its own equipment, California Department of Transportation officials said.

The driver said his brakes failed. The crash damaged the undercarriage so investigators could not determine the exact cause of the accident, CHP officials said.

No one was injured.

— Joseph Serna