Posted on 11/22/2012 8:20:56 PM PST by prairiebreeze
BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) — Two people died and more than 80 people were hurt Thursday when at least 100 vehicles collided in Southeast Texas in a pileup that left trucks twisted on top of each other and authorities rushing to pull survivors from the wreckage.
The collision occurred in extremely foggy conditions at about 8:45 a.m. Thanksgiving Day on Interstate 10 southwest of Beaumont, a Gulf Coast city about 80 miles east of Houston.
A man and a woman were killed in a Chevy Suburban SUV crushed by a tractor trailer, the Texas Department of Public Safety told KFDM-TV.
Officials at Acadian Ambulance service said at least 51 people have been taken to area hospitals and at least eight are critically hurt.
According to DPS, a crash on the eastbound side of the highway led to other accidents in a dangerous chain reaction. There were multiple crashes on the other side of the highway as well.
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Deputy Rod Carroll told The Associated Press the fog was so thick that deputies didn't immediately realize they were dealing with multiple accidents.
"It is catastrophic," Carroll said. "I've got cars on top of cars."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I’ve been in it before. I could see one stripe in the road in front of me and the tail lights intermittently of the truck in front of me. If someone had stopped, or if I had stored it would have been a pile up. You don’t stop in fog.slow, don’t stop. It ain’t a great option but there is no other.
I should have said you dont stop, not that you dont slow
•Drive with lights on low beam. High beams will only be reflected back off the fog and actually impair visibility even more.
•Reduce your speed -- and watch your speedometer. Fog creates a visual illusion of slow motion when you may actually be speeding.
•Listen for traffic you cannot see. Open your window a little, to hear better.
•Use wipers and defrosters as necessary for maximum visibility.
•Use the right edge of the road or painted road markings as a guide.
•Be patient. Do not pass lines of traffic.
•Do not stop on a freeway or heavily traveled road. If your car stalls or becomes disabled, turn your vehicle's lights off, and take your foot off of the brake pedal. People tend to follow tail lights when driving in fog. Move away from the vehicle to avoid injury.
From another source,http://www.drive-safely.net/driving-in-fog.html
Sometimes, foggy conditions just becomes too thick. You know your limits. If you find that you're exceeding your comfort zone, it might be best to stop until the fog lifts. But this is an extremely dangerous situation! If you can't see, either can anyone else. Try to get as far off the road as possible. Pull into a driveway, parking lot, rest area, side street, or any other place where you can get away from heavy traffic flow. But if the roadway shoulder is your only option, pull way over. Go into the grass if necessary. If there's a curb, drive over it and park on the other side of the curb. Stay buckled up and turn your lights off! If you leave your lights on, people might think you are driving on the roadway and rear-end you. Make sure your foot is off the brake pedal, and do not use your flashers. Keep all your lights off. If there is shelter nearby, try to get there quickly. Otherwise, stay in your car and stay buckled up.
I had two occasions like that: one was in Spain, where I had to look down through my opened driver's door to look down to follow the center line. While creeping along, it didn't occur to me that someone else—coming from the opposite direction—could have the same idea!
The other was recently in Florida, needing to cross a 4-lane highway. I rolled both windows down and listened for traffic before crossing. :-/
Here is a link describing the various state DOT efforts and countermeasures dealing with highways prone to poor visibility, fog in particular.
The automated, visibility controlled variable speed limit system in use for decades on I-40 west of Asheville, NC is described in some detail including early bugs in the system as well as cost of implementation.
Many states have similar efforts.
Texas had no countermeasures in place, according to the study.
http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/weather/best_practices/USfogSysSummary-VaTech.pdf
In Jan of this year Hwy 73 which is a few miles south and runs parallel to IH-10 had a major pileup of vehicles (79 or so). Apparently fog and smoke from burning marsh grass causing limited visibility was a factor.
Is there a paper mill nearby? That’s one thing I noticed reading through the link I posted, just how many fog prone areas were near paper mills.
The road J&P traveled to see their sister, Sarah?
Zero visibility in a matter of seconds does not compute with most people.
Twice I have seen a fog hit so quick and heavy, that it obstructs your visibility
to half way down your hood, and within seconds.
Once it was in a very rural area northwest of Houston by about an hour - but
in a low lying area, and the other time it occurred about 45 miles outside of
Amarillo, Tx.
Both times it lifted enough to see 10-15ft past the hood within minutes,
but both hit so rapidly there was barely enough time to pull off onto the shoulder.
Lot of rice fields in that area.
Closest mill would be some 35 miles or so north but dense fog is a fairly common thing all along the IH-10 corridor TX, LA, MS, etc when the atmospheric conditions are right.
They call it an interstate highway for a reason.
When you are smart enough to know what that means, they maybe we’ll listen to your comments.
Now go back to your tricycle, and don’t leave the driveway.
You might want to lay off the insults unless you know who you are talking to.
/johnny
Sorry, I didn’t know you were commenting on your own driving skills, I thought you were commenting on the driving skills of the rest of us in the state.
Stick to your tricycle when there’s fog. The rest of us will be safer.
Every light rain causes accidents in all the large cities on the interstates.
You might want to lay off the insults.
/johnny
Considering the proximity of Beaumont to the LA border, and the fact that IH-10 is the southern route for truck traffic and vacationers, I'll bet you a dollar to a donut that there were numerous casualties from non-Texas residents.
You might want to take your own advice.
A light rain on city streets is far worse than a heavy rain.
A heavy rain washes the crap off the street, a light rain turns it into what can best be described as grease.
It happens everywhere, not just Texas.
There’s a spot south of Flagstaff (AZ) where this periodically happens... You’re on an 8,000+ foot mountain with just a little guard rail to keep you from going over the edge. The fog came up on us so fast that we could barely get over to the edge of the road. Luckily, someone was pulled off ahead of us too and we just had enough shoulder. It was the scariest thing ever. We kept our seatbelts on and just prayed we didn’t get hit (well, not like the seatbelts would have helped much going over that much mountain, but still).
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