Whiteout causes multivehicle crashes
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Motorists gather at the scene of a multivehicle crash on Interstate 80 westbound near Harrisville, Venango County. At least three people were killed in the Saturday afternoon crash, which involved about 20 vehicles. Officials said whiteout conditions and slick roads contributed to the crash.
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At least three people were killed in a chain-reaction crash during a whiteout on Interstate 80 Saturday afternoon, while similar weather conditions left Interstate 79 in Mercer County shut down for nearly three hours after a 30-car pileup there.
The fatal crash along I-80 in Irwin, Venango County, was reported about 2:20 p.m., said Mary Beth White, a county 911 supervisor.
"We actually had multiple calls and multiple mile markers within two seconds of each other," she said.
The interstate was shut down from Mile Marker 32 to Mile Marker 42, and at least 20 vehicles were involved in the crash.
"It was whiteout conditions," she said. "Cars were sliding into each other and into the median."
Zach Kuntz, 22, of the South Side, was traveling back to Pittsburgh from St. Marys in Elk County with his sister, Erica, on I-80 westbound when they came up on the crash.
Ms. Kuntz, who is a cardiac care nurse, estimated they were about a half-mile behind it.
She got out of their car and ran down the highway.
"I started yelling, 'I'm a nurse. Is everyone OK?'"
Ms. Kuntz, of Robinson, came upon a 20-year-old girl with a bad jaw injury. She had her brother keep pressure on the girl's injury, while she continued looking for other victims.
"There didn't seem to be very many injuries for how bad it seemed," she said. "I went to the people I could tell needed some help."
Mr. Kuntz said that driving conditions just before the crash were treacherous.
"It was too snowy to see much," he said. "There were a couple points where I completely lost the road and just had to hold on and hope the road was where I thought it was."
He believed the crash was caused by low visibility and snowy roads.
"They weren't being plowed very well," Mr. Kuntz said. "It was accumulating very quickly."
He talked to a couple of the truckers involved in the crash. They described having a "complete loss of visibility, where you became snow blind," he said.
Mr. Kuntz saw a petroleum tanker overturned as well as a FedEx truck turned around.
"A lot of cars were wrapped around one another. There were a couple of crushed cars."
The poor conditions and traffic backups caused delays in emergency response.
Brad Rehak, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, said the whiteouts were caused by lake-effect snow showers from Lake Erie, which send bands of heavy snow southward.
"They can be narrow but intense," he said. "With the winds, they can ice [the roads] and reduce visibility pretty quickly."
He estimated about 3 to 4 inches of accumulation along that I-80 corridor since Friday night.
The snow was expected to taper off into flurries Saturday night, and today should bring sunshine and temperatures in the low-30s, Mr. Rehak said.
Although there were power outages around the region on Friday, neither Mercer nor Venango had any Saturday afternoon.
In the Mercer County incident, state police said more than 30 cars and commercial vehicles were involved in a chain-reaction crash about noon on Saturday along I-79 in Deer Creek.
A school bus was brought to the scene to help transport stranded motorists, and about 15 tow trucks were needed to clear the highway.
It didn't reopen until almost 3 p.m.
First Published February 26, 2012 12:00 am
