By GARANCE BURKE,
Eighteen big rigs were involved in the massive pileup on Highway 99 just south of Fresno as patches of dense fog obscured visibility on the heavily traveled roadway, CHP officials said.
Photo Gallery: Highway 99 Pileup
Gary Kazanjian, AP
The wreckage of more than 100 cars is seen here on a Fresno, Calif., highway after dense fog led to a pileup that killed at least two people.
“It looked like something out of a movie, walking up and seeing all the cars mangled and crushed,” Solorzano said.
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.
The freeway’s northbound lanes around Clovis Avenue 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.
Two of the big rigs leaked 90 gallons of diesel fuel onto the freeway when their fuel tanks ruptured, but the diesel was contained. No hazardous materials were spilled, CHP officials said.
Hours after the accident, the freeway was littered with smashed cars and trucks, broken glass, auto parts and blood. A big rig carrying stacked crates of live turkeys was stranded in the middle of the normally busy highway.
Crash victims gathered on the freeway shoulder near the wreckage, waiting to be interviewed by investigators.
Cindy Ramirez, 21, of Selma, said her purple Mazda pickup truck was rear-ended as she was driving to her job washing windows in Shaver Lake.
“Everybody was trying to miss everybody, but it was impossible not to get hit,” Ramirez said. “I’m fine physically, but I keep thinking about all of the things that could have happened.”
Omar Macias, 33, was hauling asphalt from Bakersfield to Elk Grove when his truck was caught in the pileup.
“I got out to check on people at first, and then I heard more crashes around me, so I got right back in,” said Macias of Bakersfield. “I feel OK, but I don’t what OK means right now. People got hurt.”
Even as investigators interviewed dazed drivers on the roadside, crews began sprinkling sand on the freeway and sweeping up shattered glass.
Thick seasonal fog known as “Tule fog” typically occurs in Central California in the late fall and winter. Two people died along a nearby stretch of fog-blanketed Highway 99 in an 87-vehicle pileup in 2002, and another section of the roadway several miles south was the scene of a 74-vehicle crash that left two dead nearly a decade ago.
“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.”
Micky Padilla of Porterville was driving with his family to a baptism when they heard the sound of metal screeching, struggled to brake and slammed into a Nissan Maxima.
Padilla ran out and found a man bleeding in a white pickup. The man was still breathing minutes later when firefighters arrived, but later died on the highway, Padilla said.
“It was just bang, bang all around us,” Padilla said, shaking his head as he stood next to a puddle of blood on the blacktop. “I can’t believe I still have my wife and my kids. Someone was looking out for us.”
Associated Press writer Marcus Wohlsen contributed to this report from San Francisco.
