I also needed to find out all that I could in just minutes what kind of toxic chemical “phosphorus trichloride” was. I said to my staff, “It looks like we have much to do, and we better do it right.” The press was after me to make a statement, but I knew that first I had to meet with my Fire Chief Charlie Donovan to find out the facts and exactly where we stood at that point. I later expanded that evacuation to several thousand residents. My first order was to call for the evacuation of the immediate area. It really looked like a movie made for television, only it was real. I saw smoke billowing all over the sky, police cars, ambulances, fire engines from several cities, civil defense cars, bulldozers and sad to say, firemen being treated. When I got to the scene of the accident, I thought that I was on a movie set. It was televised as the worst chemical spill in the history of the Commonwealth. The chemical was spilling out of the tank car at the rate of 100 gallons per minute. The damaged container was carrying 13,000 gallons of phosphorus trichloride. It pierced the skin of steel, 7/16” thick on a container car, causing a 16” long gash into the container. A Boston and Maine switching engine, consisting of a locomotive and 38 cars, rammed the side of a tank car. I was notified that there was an accident at the B&M yard. on the morning of April 3, 1980, I received a telephone call at my home, just as I was about to leave for my office. But he revealed more information regarding the incident in his Saturday post.42 years ago, this past Sunday and only in my twelfth week as mayor, I had my “baptism by fire,” so to speak. While Somerville spoke out on the arrest earlier this January and confirmed he would not be returning to KTVU, details were scant. He was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence after a car crash the following month, according to the Oakland Police Department. That November, Somerville told the Bay Area News Group he was “never going to anchor” at KTVU again. KTVU news director Amber Eikel denied the request, calling it inappropriate, according to the source. Somerville, who has a Black daughter, had wanted to add a note at the end of any news story regarding the investigation explaining how media coverage of missing people tends to focus on white women, and the rates of domestic violence Black women in America face, an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation told SFGATE in September 2021. A KTVU spokesperson later said that he left the air to “focus on his health.” The celebrated anchor returned to his post at “The Ten O’Clock News on KTVU” that August without addressing his sudden exit, but was suspended indefinitely a month later after disagreements with the station over its coverage of Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old woman who was killed during a long-distance van trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie. Somerville went off the air in May 2021 after he was recorded slurring his words and abruptly left mid-broadcast with no explanation. It was the worst decision I ever made but I felt that I had no other choice,” Somerville wrote. And I really needed someone to talk to.”īut “main anchors don’t do that,” Somerville wrote. “But over time I realized that I felt like I was under a pall of sadness. “I felt it was my duty to be at all those funerals to let people know that I cared and that KTVU cared,” Somerville continued. The longtime reporter, who became an anchor in 1992 and started co-anchoring the evening shows in 2008, said that he had gone to the funerals of seven “young Black men and women who were killed on the streets on Oakland” as well as two police officers for BART and the city of Fremont.
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