Massive Pileup Closes Calif. Highway
Pastor Dale Morgan
Massive Pileup Closes Calif. Highway*
Saturday November 3, 2007 8:46 PM
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Dense fog along a busy highway was blamed for a
massive pileup of as many as 100 cars, killing two people and injuring
dozens, the California Highway Patrol said.
At least nine big rigs were involved in the pileup on northbound Highway
99 just south of Fresno, CHP officials said. No hazardous materials were
spilled.
``It looked like something out of a movie, walking up and seeing all the
cars mangled and crushed,'' said CHP Officer Paul Solorzano, Jr.
A 6-year-old boy and a 28-year-old man traveling in separate vehicles
were killed in the chain-reaction collisions around 7:45 a.m., he said.
``There was probably two-foot visibility in the fog when I got here. It
was really bad,'' said Mike Bowman, a spokesman for the California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. ``It looked like chaos. Cars
were backed up on top of each other.''
Rescuers had to extract several people trapped in the wreckage, and
paramedics transported more than three dozen patients to the hospital
with injuries, Fresno City Fire Department spokesman Ken Shockley said.
``Everybody was trying to miss everybody, but it was impossible not to
get hit,'' said Cindy Ramirez, 21, of Selma, whose purple Mazda pickup
truck was rear-ended. ``I'm fine physically, but I keep thinking about
all of the things that could have happened.''
Hours after the accident, the freeway was littered with smashed cars and
trucks, broken gas, auto parts and blood. A big rig carrying stacked
crates of live turkeys was stranded on the normally busy highway.
Crash victims sat near the wreckage, waiting to be interviewed by
investigators.
The freeway's northbound lanes were shut down indefinitely as
investigators worked to determine the cause of the crash. Traffic backed
up for miles south of the wreckage. Southbound lanes remained opened.
Thick seasonal fog known as ``Tule fog'' typically occurs in Central
California in the late fall and winter. A stretch of the highway several
miles south was the scene of an autumn 74-car pileup nearly a decade ago
that left two people dead.
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Associated Press writer Marcus Wohlsen contributed to this report from
San Francisco.