Winds blowing over 80 mph created near-blackout conditions on I-70 in western Kansas, causing a massive pileup involving 71 cars and trucks. Eight people died and there were at least 55 injured. The highway was closed for about 24 hours before re-opening this afternoon.
He said ambulance transport was overwhelmed, so emergency crews adapted, using fire department support vehicles and even patrol cars from the Goodland Police Department, Sherman County Sheriff’s Office, and Kansas Highway Patrol to transport the injured to hospitals in Goodland and Colby.
Wow! The bigger picture in the article looks like it might be (2) F-150’s and the cab of the white one is crushed. There’s probably no stopping it once it starts.
I was once in a heavy rain that reduced visibility to only seeing the brake lights of the car in front of me. Not the car, just the brake lights. Somehow an entire line of traffic in 2 lanes collectively slowed down at the same rate and nobody collided. I didn’t appreciate how lucky I was at the time.
I was once in a chain collision near Chicago. I was in the left lane alongside the center divider when the semis in front of me began crashing into each other. I was far enough back that I stopped in time and no one hit me from behind. Then the front edge of the crash propagated to the vehicles to the right of me. One by one they (mostly semis) hit each other and the crash stacked up until it was well behind me.
I was in a sea of green diesel fuel. There were only one or two vehicles behind me so we backed up until we got behind the crashed vehicles then pulled into the right lane and finally merged into the next lane to bypass the scene. I kept expecting the fuel to catch fire but it didn’t.
That sounds like it was horrible. As a motorcycle rider, fog, smoke and blowing dust can be terrifying. At least in a car you have some protection, although in this instance, not enough.
I do like the FD utility vehicle (pickup) with the keep back 343’; wouldn’t expect to see that in KS but a very cool show of solidarity with their big city brethren!
My wife and I drove through a serious dust storm in the Four Corners area last summer. If you look closely, you can just barely see her tails lights in front of me:
I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve never seen that on any apparatus before, even something in the NYC vicinity (where I am a lot) & I’m a bit surprised that they’re recognizing a dept that I assume thay have no direct connection to that’s literally half a country, 1500 miles away.
The worst accident I had to deal with was 34 cars on black ice. Couldn’t even walk on it until the salt truck came through. Luckily speeds weren’t high and I don’t remember any injuries. Unluckily I had to do the paperwork.
True, but even gasoline doesn’t ignite at very many car accidents. With the exception of the '70s Ford Pinto, gas tanks are somewhat protected so they don’t automatically rupture at every car accident & even if one of those cars did rupture it’s tank, the wind bringing all that dust is helping to disapate the fumes
