A hazardous spill of nitric acid caused quite the headache for those needing to evacuate and shelter-in-place Tuesday.
It happened on I-10 just south of Tucson.
As of Wednesday Unified Command has rescinded the shelter-in-place order, though existing evacuations remain in effect.
Adam Simmons tells ABC15 he was roughly one mile away from where the nitric acid spill happened, following the crash.
"I've never received a hazmat warning on my phone. So that was frightening, and there wasn't much information to go on either,” Simmons added.
Simmons works in health care along with children, he tells ABC15 they were all outside when he got the alert around 4 p.m.
Evacuations began for those half a mile perimeter around from where the incident happened.
Those living within a mile from it were told to shelter in place and turn off their air conditioners and heaters.
Simmons tells ABC15, he took off.
"There were lines of cars. It took me probably half an hour just to get past one street," he said.
The shelter-in-place order was lifted Tuesday night, but was then placed back early Wednesday.
That order was then lifted Wednesday evening.
"I would say the worst has come to pass," said Simmons.
ABC15 also spoke to Kiril Hristovski, an Associate Professor at ASU and the Chair of the Environmental and Resource Management Program.
Hristovski says nitric acid is dangerous and can be extremely harmful.
Although, in this case he says, "unless they were basically, directly without any proper protection, in the incident, standing there, inhaling those mists that were generated, and those gasses, then they shouldn't worry."
Adding the response was done by the book.
"For a spill like that, typically the isolation…during (the) day is .2 miles. At night it's .4 and I think because of the winds the first responders did an excellent job of expanding that radius to protect further," he told ABC15.
Hristovski also says, here in Arizona, we have caliche, which is a layer of soil where the particles are cemented together by calcium.
This helps prevent deeper penetration of the nitrates into the soil.
As for hauling hazardous materials, there are places you can and can’t drive them on.
The highlighted areas in red show where you can't drive, which include parts of I-10 in the Valley, including the deck park tunnel, as well as parts of US-60, Loop 101 and Loop 202.
The green area is the alternate route drivers have to take which is I-17 west of the tunnel to I-10 east of the tunnel.
Though, in Tucson, there are no restrictions where this spill happened on I-10.
AZDPS is posting updates as they happen.
