The tanker truck carrying propane that crashed in Kittery on Wednesday took crews about 14 hours to clean up and closed the northbound off-ramp throughout the evening, police said Thursday.

The truck crashed about 9 a.m. when it failed to negotiate the ramp’s curve, sending the truck’s cab and pressurized tank over the guardrail and into a ditch, said Kittery Police Chief Robert Richter.

No propane leaked during the crash, and the driver of the truck suffered only minor injuries, but it took firefighters two hours to extricate him from the mangled cab, police said.

Then the heavy lifting began, Richter said.

Because the truck had careened down the embankment and was loaded full of propane, another propane truck was dispatched to pump out the fuel in the crashed rig. To get the fuel to transfer, a heavy-duty wrecker had to pick up and reorient the crashed tank.

It was 6 p.m. before the tanker was set back on its wheels, and roughly 11 p.m. before CMP crews could attend to a downed pole that cut power to nearly 1,900 customers after the crash.

The ramp reopened before midnight, Richter said.

“Everybody who was there did a fantastic job,” Richter said.

 

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