Thanks to an emergency plan, quick thinking and a lot of luck, Dart Transit's operations were not affected when a tractor-trailer smashed into its Eagan, Minn., headquarters and burst into flames Monday.

The driver of a tractor-trailer loaded with gravel lost control of his rig after hitting a sport-utility vehicle at the intersection of Minnesota Hwy. 55 and Lone Oak Road, where Dart's headquarters are located. The truck careered 50 feet across Dart's lawn and smashed through the brick building. The truck's nose landed right in the cubicle of public relations executive Steve Gundale, who was on vacation that day.
"My desk was at ground zero," he told Truckinginfo.com. "If I had been at my desk at that moment, I would not be talking to you." A coworker in the cubicle across from Gundale's saw the truck coming and had time to get under his desk before ceiling tiles, bricks and smashed-up cubicle pieces rained down on it. He could see a fire starting under the truck and climbed up over the desk, cubicle and filing cabinets to escape, suffering only a broken rib.
As employees scrambled to get out of the building, the truck went up in flames, shooting a huge column of sooty smoke into the air and through the building. The building's sprinkler system kept the fire from spreading inside, although there was extensive smoke and water damage. While Gundale did not have a dollar estimate on damage, he said, "At least half of the lower level's going to have to be gutted and redone." Much of the company's archival material, such as photos and magazines that had done articles on Dart, were stored in Gundale's cubicle area and were damaged or destroyed. "Everything was covered with soot, even in the most remote washroom," he said.
Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt. The truck driver escaped with only a burned arm; the driver of the SUV was taken to the hospital for observation but reportedly was not seriously injured.
"We were just amazingly fortunate," Gundale said. "God was really looking over us."
But employees didn't stand around gawking or marveling at their good fortune. Within a few minutes, they switched phone equipment to the company's Dallas operations center, where computers were able to take over so contact between dispatchers, drivers and customers was able to continue. The night dispatch crew went up temporary offices about a mile down the highway. "The computer people and other staff were able to get all the systems back up and running, and by 8 a.m. Tuesday morning we were back open again," Gundale says.
Gundale noted that everything worked as it should - the sprinkler system went off, and the company's backup plans for disasters such as tornadoes or fire worked. "The advance planning that we'd done really paid off," he said.