Weather turns back local help for Cantwell

CANTWELL — Weather hampered the response of Mat-Su Borough medics called to respond when a gas station exploded Sunday at Mile 210 of the Parks Highway.

“I made it to about Mile 165, 167,” Talkeetna Fire Chief Ken Farina said. “Trapper Creek ambulance made it to Mile 201 and they transferred a patient from the National Parks Service ambulance.”

Farina said a woman in the ambulance had facial burns and that the borough ambulance brought her to a local airstrip to meet up with an air ambulance.

“The weather was really bad, about Mile 145 the weather just deteriorated like you hit a wall,” Farina said. Nobody could go much farther than that. “The helicopter tried and said, ‘no, we’ve got to get back to Mile 115.’”

The helo flew the patient — identified in trooper reports as Gale Anderson, 61, of Cantwell, an employee of the Chevron gas station that exploded — to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage Sunday night. Troopers say she was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Monday.

According to a trooper report, the explosion was called in at 6 p.m. The blast actually came from within the service station, exploding with enough force to blow out the windows and send debris into the parking lot.

“Garbage cans and grocery baskets landed past the gas pump island in front of the store,” according to the AST report.

Responders were called from north and south of the store. The ones coming from the north actually arrived first to battle the blaze. Farina said no Mat-Su responders actually made it to the scene. It was snowing Sunday night and the roads hadn’t been cleared. There was one lane open and it was white-knuckle driving, which meant responders couldn’t drive as fast as they usually would to respond to an emergency. Eventually, the firefighters from up north told them to turn around.

“The radio message was that it was burnt to the ground and there wasn’t really anything we could do to help them anymore,” Farina said.

The fire was contained and didn’t spread to the gas pumps, but troopers report that “the store, however, was fully engulfed in flames when troopers arrived on scene.”

In addition to Anderson, another employee, Samuel Allan, 26, of Cantwell, was hospitalized. Troopers say he went back into the building multiple times to make sure everyone got out.

Also injured were Judith Riley, 70, of North Pole, Mathew Atkinson, 43, of Fairbanks and Allen Glore, 58, of Cantwell. All but Atkinson — who was treated on scene — were hospitalized in Fairbanks. Glore was later flown to Anchorage.

Multiple emergency response agencies — the Tri-Valley Volunteer Fire Department, Cantwell Volunteer Fire Department, Denali National Park Service medics, McKinley Village Fire Station and Nenana medics — responded to the call, according to troopers. Multiple troopers from various posts along the highway also responded. Even state Department of Transportation workers turned out to help with crowd control and direct highway traffic.

Mat-Su Borough Deputy Director of Emergency Services Clint Vardeman said it’s unusual, but not unheard of, for borough responders to be summoned to neighboring communities outside the borough. The borough takes steps to make sure its residents are still covered when departments have to send trucks outside, he said.

“We moved Willow fire and Willow ambulance up to the Sunshine station to stand by while the other northern groups were going,” Vardeman said.

As of Monday, troopers reported, the fire was out.

“A diesel tank that provides heat to the building also burned in the fire. The store continued burning throughout the night and was extinguished this morning,” troopers reported Monday. Fire investigators were on scene, but hadn’t settled on a cause for the explosion.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.