The Westport Police Department says:
“A truck traveling westbound on Post Road East from the area of Long Lots Road had a hydraulic line break this morning, and began leaking hydraulic fluid.
“The operator of the vehicle did not know the fluid was leaking. and continued driving west on Post Road East to Myrtle Ave and Main Street.
“The fluid on the road caused 3 crashes before we were able to get lanes closed.
“The Connecticut Department of Transportation and town Highway Department are currently on scene and in the process of conducting a clean-up.
“The State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has been notified, but at this time they are not on scene.
“As a result of this incident, traffic on Post Road East has been significantly affected. Westport Police ask the public to avoid the area until the spill can be mitigated. There have been no road closures, but lanes on the affected roads have been closed.
Hydraulic fluid leaks are messy — and dangerous.
Thank you for posting this, Dan!
Many thanks, Dan! Received your post just in time to change my route.
OMG I wish I had gotten this earlier as it took me an hour to get from Walgreens at the connector to Terrain today as I was told I couldn’t go west on post Rd as I was at Roseville and they made me wait 15 minutes then told me I had to go right onto Roseville then Whitney was closed too for road work so I had to take cross Hwy to Compo and then they wouldn’t let me turn onto Post road going east either. So I had to wait another 20 minutes until they finally let me turn to go onto the post road. Then coming home to Saugatuck shores, I had to take Rayfield thru and around to Compo to get home as I had appointments at terrain. It was a nightmare and much worse than usual.
Came from an appointment near the firehouse- luckily I was able to turn onto the road behind CVS (East Main?) Looks like they closed the right lane west bound and have put down some material to absorb the fluid.
Stuck in it for over an hour.
Westport traffic is to NOW be expected, but this was awful.
Nonetheless Dan, your post will spare many!
It never ceases to amaze me that with a good system like Nixle, it is not used more. If the Town (not sure which dept but Police seems obvious) would send out not just notices for occurrences like this but also for infrastructure-based delays/roadwork, it would alleviate some traffic and certainly some “agita” for drivers.