Parker Grocery Store Heavily Damaged by Runaway Semi-Truck
by: JEFF TUCKER - The Oil City Derrick Online

Early damage estimates as much as $100,000. No one was injured and the store remains open for business, despite losing the main entrance.

Heavy damage is left in the wake of a runaway tractor trailer that smashed into Whyte's Comet Market grocery store in Parker PA on Monday, October 18, 2004. Photo by: Richard Anschutz - Parker City Fire Police

A Parker grocery store sustained tens of thousands of dollars of damages Monday morning when a tractor-trailer plowed through it about an hour before it opened, knocking down walls and spilling fuel and oil.

Truck driver Jean Joseph, 57, of New Jersey, was taken to Clarion Hospital, where he was treated and released.

No other injuries were reported in the early-morning accident at Whytes Comet Market at the intersection of routes 268 and 368.

Parker fire chief Tom King said Joseph was pinned inside his tractor for about 30 minutes after the 6:45 a.m. accident until he was extricated by Parker firefighters. Emlenton firefighters assisted.

Meanwhile, diesel fuel, motor oil and anti-freeze leaked around the scene, King said.

"We used soak pads and saw dust to contain the leakage so it didn't get into storm drains," King said. "The north end of the store was damaged pretty heavily. It took out two walls and the roof was sagging a little bit. They had to shore it up a little bit.

"It took pretty heavy damage, but the store was able to open."

Joseph was driving a truck owned by Linden Bulk Transport of Linden, N.J., King said. The truck was hauling soap binder fluid bound for Crompton Corp. in Petrolia.

King said Joseph was going west on Route 368 down a long, steep hill when he failed to negotiate a turn south onto Route 268, plowing into the grocery store at the T intersection. He said there weren't any skid marks.

The tractor was totaled while the trailer sustained no damages, King said. None of the soap binder leaked, he said.

Jay Whyte, owner of the market at 104 N. River Ave., said the store sustained between $50,000 and $100,000 of damages.

Whyte, who was alone in the small grocery at the time of the accident, said the crash spilled battery acid, diesel fuel and other contaminants mostly outside the store.

"He came down across the Parker bridge and didn't stop and came right into the store," Whyte said. "It shook the whole building, it sounded like an explosion."

Whyte said goods were not damaged as the truck rammed through the front of the store.

"It was mostly all structural (damage) to the entranceway and office," he said. "There was a small diesel fuel leak. Most of it was outside the building in the parking lot. There was very little inside the store, but all the debris was cleaned up by 5 (p.m.)"

Whyte said the business, which his family has owned since 1998, was closed until about noon to clean up some of the wreckage.

Whyte said his insurer, and the truck driver's insurer, were at the scene Monday.

"They said do what needs to be done to get back in operation," Whyte said. "My main concern is getting the gas pumps back on. All the wiring was destroyed. The truck hit right where my conduit went for all the pumps.

"We really don't know all the damage yet."

Whyte said repairs have begun and the store will be open today during its normal hours. He said a temporary entrance will be in use today until a new entrance is built toward the store's parking lot.

"It will be business as usual. The contractors were there all day today and hopefully they'll start laying block tomorrow," Whyte said Monday night.

"We just found the whole front wall is shifted. There's a lot of structural work to be done before we can start putting the windows back in, and two sets of entrance doors.

"I want to thank all the people that offered help to clean-up and all the people who did help to get where we are now."