Massive I-95 accident

[filburt1]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13456-2004Jan13.html

It's unnerving for me because it is right along the route I take to school, just one mile or less south of my exit. I have driven under that bridge for years.

[gearshifter47]

WOW.. thats just scary.. like out of a movie

I can almost see it as if it were from a movie

[filburt1]

Jesus Christ, these pictures were just brought into a local news station and aired...captured them with the TV tuner card.

[ManagerJosh]

There are more pictures at NBC..

http://www.nbc4.com/traffic/2761942/detail.html

[Freddie Bingham]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Jan13.html

It's unnerving for me because it is right along the route I take to school, just one mile or less south of my exit. I have driven under that bridge for years.

Look at this accident from last year. I *almost* became part of it but I came upon it just moments after is started and managed to swerve and brake my way through the banged up cars that popped out of the fog

77 vehicles collide on foggy highway





CALIENTE (AP) ---- Seventy-seven vehicles collided in fog on Highway 58 Thursday, killing one motorist and injuring 15. Two other chain-reaction collisions in Kern County crunched 13 more vehicles on foggy Interstate 5.

The biggest pileups began shortly after 9 a.m. on Highway 58 about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles in the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains, which separate the Mojave Desert from the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Arriving officers estimated visibility at 100 feet and found jackknifed big-rigs, an overturned cement truck, a person pinned under a pickup truck's steering wheel, with more collisions continuing to occur, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Ted Eichman said.

Fifty-five cars and trucks were involved in the first collision; the second occurred east of the original smashup.

A California Department of Corrections prisoner van was involved but no inmates were injured or escaped, CHP spokesman Tom Marshall said.

A Kern County firetruck parked on Highway 58 was struck by a private vehicle, which was heavily damaged, fire Capt. Doug Johnston said. The highway was closed by that time and it was unknown how that car got onto the road, he said.

"The scene looks like a war zone," Johnston said.

The county coroner's office identified the fatality as Carl Ray Woosley, 52, of Bakersfield. Other motorists removed the man from his vehicle and tried to save him with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Johnston said.

It took until midafternoon for the CHP to reopen the westbound side of the heavily traveled highway, and the eastbound side was not reopened until nightfall.

"There's only so much you can do to unwrap these vehicles," Eichman said.

The Highway 58 accidents were followed by two others that had no injuries. Nine vehicles were involved in a southbound Interstate 5 pileup in Tejon Pass, and four vehicles crashed on southbound I-5 at State Route 43 near Buttonwillow, Eichman said.

Eichman stressed that although fog appeared to be connected to the crashes, "Fog doesn't cause collisions; unsafe driving does."

The National Weather Service had issued dense fog advisories for the central and southern San Joaquin Valley.

Because the area of the largest crash was bounded to the south by the Tehachapis, to the east by the southern Sierra Nevada and to the west by the coastal range, when fog comes, "that'll be the last place it burns off," said forecaster Gary Sanger of the service's Hanford office. The weather service predicted more fog Thursday night and Friday throughout the Central Valley, with potential for dense fog during the morning commute.

[deano]

Jesus Christ, these pictures were just brought into a local news station and aired...captured them with the TV tuner card.

holly crap

[Wayne Luke]

Look at this accident from last year. I *almost* became part of it but I came upon it just moments after is started and managed to swerve and brake my way through the banged up cars that popped out of the fog

Ugh.... I hate the 58 and 99 Freeways in the morning for this exact reason. Going to be heading your way in a few weeks and hope the travel through the fog that morning is smooth.

[jilly]

Me Too Filburt!!!

I work 5 mins or so away from where it happened - and drive that road all the time.. I started crying at work when I saw it on our TV there... feel extremely lucky it was not me.. feel horrible for my fellow marylanders who got up this morning and went about their day like normal, never knowing it was their last

[jilly]

What is PhotoposT?

I keep seeing it mentioned and I dont know what it is or what it does - what's the big vB deal with Photopost?

[ManagerJosh]

I just remember this accident that happened sometime ago..two years ago.

200-Vehicle Pileup Shuts Down Freeway, Injures Dozens

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- The Long Beach Freeway has reopened after nearly 200 cars and big-rig trucks collided in heavy fog, injuring dozens of people, including nine critically.

A mangled mess of cars, vans and big-rig trucks shutdown the freeway, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles, for nearly 11 hours Sunday, while California Highway Patrol officers cleared the scene and investigated the cause of two separate accidents about a half-mile apart.


CHP Officer Joseph Pace said visibility was down to about 50 feet in heavy fog when the chain-reaction crashes began just before 7 a.m. There were 194 vehicles involved, including seven or eight big-rig trucks. Forty-one people were injured.


"The fog was thick and all you saw on the horizon was the cars piled up in both directions," driver Rob Ziegler said. He said his car was pushed into the pile and struck by a double-tanker truck, but he wasn't seriously injured.

"You could hear all the crashing and the banging. You could feel your car moving, knowing that other cars are still hitting you," he said.


Some cars were buried under others, and some of the injured had to be cut from their vehicles.


Dozens of cars, vans and big-rig trucks could be seen tangled together and littering both sides of the freeway about 25 miles south of Los Angeles.


A 77-year-old woman was listed in critical condition at Long Beach Memorial Hospital and two unidentified victims were in critical condition at St. Mary Medical Center. At least four other people were listed in serious but stable condition at the two hospitals.

Many other injured were treated for minor injuries and released.


Pace said visibility was down to about 50 feet in heavy fog when the chain-reaction crashes began just before 7 a.m.


Some motorists were driving too fast for the foggy conditions, Pace said. Exact speeds were undetermined, as was the initial cause of the pileup.


However, some motorists estimated cars were moving at 25 to 35 mph.


Lorne Whittle of Riverside was heading to work at the Port of Long Beach when he found himself approaching the wreckage.


"It looked like bumper cars," he said. "I stopped and then cars started bouncing off each other."


Butch Onesto of Whittier said he hit the brakes to avoid the crash but his Honda Civic was struck by three cars.


"Something told me to get out of the car. I kicked open the passenger door, climbed out and ran," said Onesto, who was uninjured.


Seconds later, a car smashed in the driver's side of his car, he said. Another car ended up on the Honda's roof.


The accident will take about eight or nine hours to clean up, the California Highway Patrol said earlier in the day.

[Wayne Luke]

You don't have accidents like this on the East Coast on a regular basis? Granted it looked bad from the pictures but it looked a lot worse because of the way they were fighting the fire. Unfortunately, it has almost gotten to the point where I can't turn on the local news without seeing similar accidents that this doesn't affect me anymore. Heck, I can't even remember if this was on the local news here last night. I do remember it from the national news.

[filburt1]

Yes, in terms of fatalities, it was a minor accident, but shutting down the major east coast interstate because of a fuel tanker flying off a bridge doesn't happen every day.

It looks like that they reopened I-95: http://www.chart.state.md.us/TravInfo/trafficEvents.asp . Amazing response time given that on northbound I-95, the road was physically melted.

[filburt1]

I happened to drive under the I-895 bridge on I-95 both directions today...the pavement on I-95 North is all distorted and warped, and the bridge when viewed on southbound I-95 is completely charred and burned.

[Wayne Luke]

Yes, in terms of fatalities, it was a minor accident, but shutting down the major east coast interstate because of a fuel tanker flying off a bridge doesn't happen every day.

We get stuff like this quite regularly in California, at least a couple times a year. Maybe not a fuel tanker but that has happened in the past. Have also had 50 Ton Cranes fly over the center divider and other such incidents.

[MrNase]

damned! That looks scary!!