Collisions on a foggy freeway Saturday resulted in a pileup of as many as 100 vehicles and the deaths of at least two people, the California Highway Patrol said.
The collisions included nine big rigs on northbound Highway 99 just south of Fresno, CHP Officer Scott Jobinger said. "It looks like we had a chain reaction crash in that fog," Jobinger said.
Rescuers extracted several people whose vehicles were pinned under tractor trailers, he said.
Paramedics transported more than three dozen people with injuries to the hospital, Fresno City Fire Department spokesman Ken Shockley said. Wrecked vehicles were scattered for at least two miles along the freeway as crews worked to clear the wreckage, he said.
Authorities said no hazardous materials appeared to have been spilled in the morning crash. That section of the freeway will remain shut down as investigators look into the cause of the crash, Jobinger said. The southbound lanes remained opened.
#4
:-) I've been in it when you can't see 5' in front of you....best to find an exit/get off the highway/sit it out, cuz sure as shooting some fool will be coming up on your tail at 55mph and another will be stopped in the lane ahead of you
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2007 16:04 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I have driven many hazardous conditions myself, and rate my 4AM drive from Fresno to Modesto (girlfreind issues, if I recall) in the late 70's as one of my scariest.
Put a "Blind Faith" cassette in the player, try to align your front hood with a glimpse of the line and pray to Sweet Jesus.
I drove 110 miles in the stuff and managed to drive right past my own street, which had a traffic signal.
#6
I think I'd try to get my car as far off the road as possible, and get me out of said car and on the other side of the guardrail as quick as I could.
#7
For those of you unfamiliar with tule fog or an arctic whiteout, imagine driving inside of a ping pong ball. Using high beams only makes it worse due to light being reflected back into your eyes.
#8
Frank was being generous saying you can't see 5'. You can't see your hand held out directly in front of your face. It is worse than the worst snow or rain on the east coast.
And if you get out of your car, don't walk forward, the car will only bounce into you when it gets hit.
#9
I assume that's a stock pic. This article has pics from the scene. Note especially the one with the yellow semi tractor being winched up. That stuff underneath it was a car, once upon a time.
#12
I remember I was out of Fresno on a rural road and got a flat in Tule fog. I'd only changed a tire once before but I must have changed that thing in 5 seconds I was so scared! Lucky those roads were not well traveled. You stop at the intersections and listen to see if you hear a car coming before you cross - that is if you are lucky enough to see the traffic light.
#3
a5089, actually, I was unaware that there _really was_ a "standard description of the chupacabras," thus making it a lot more likely to be one of those collective panic thingeys than possible reports of a real creature.
#4
From tales of people who have supposedly seen chupie(s), the general idea is definitvely NOT a "mundane" critter : a kangooroo-like short reptilian humanoid with a spiked backbone ridge, diminutive arms with huge claws, strong legs (sometimes inverted as a dog hindleg), "grey aliens"-like slanted black eyes that sometimes glow red, occasionally a "sucking" appendage instead of fangs, occasionally wings, plus supernatural abilities like shrugging off bullets and buckshot or machete blows (with metallic "hollow" sounds when hit), jumping/flying over the roof of small house,...
Whatever it is, from the mundane to the John Keel, "giant honey badger" type rumors, folklore bit, alien pets, escaped US bioweapon from Puerto Rico underground labs, critter from the Hollow Earth, demonic or extra dimensional entity or tulpa,... the manged coyotes just don't cut it.
Pretty neat bit of american folklore, though, you folks get the best creatures... there is hardly anything like that coming from Europe nowadays, whereas France used to be an hotbed of giant wolves, devilish beasts and werewolves up until the 18th or so. Britain has big cats (boring), and phantom black dogs, though, plus the occasional cavemen.
#5
Yah, there's a grab bag of items, but there's no standardized description. Anytime someone sees something wierd in an area with a large hispanic population whatever characteristics it has automatically get added to chupacabra's "standard description."
The same thing happened with the Jersey Devil.
It eventually came to mean "anything strange seen in New Jersey."
#2
The case has drawn international attention, and Orange County Circuit Judge Marc L. Lubet said he was "just trying to keep the media frenzy down to a dull roar."I>
Tossing the case will certainly accomplish that Judge Lubet. I thought her defense was based upon temporary insanity, not evidentiary issues? I wonder if the judge is a bachelor who enjoys stories about astronauts.
#3
The ruling was a big win for the defense. But evidence from a duffel bag Nowak was carrying a steel mallet, buck knife, BB gun resembling a real 9mm handgun, gloves and six feet of rubber tubing remains in the case.
#4
It will erupt, probably in the next 48 hours and will be the biggest eruption this century (so far). Might even be the biggest since Krakatoa but I doubt it.
This video was just so bizarre to watch. It was disconcerting to see the spokespeson so casual in his manner discussing this. His male audience were sitting there listening to him as if this was perfectly natural. A excerpt follows. See the video. Hat Tip to LGF & MEMRI TV. It made me wonder how many Muslims in the West subcribe to this behavior and find this normal.
In a Ramadan television show for young Muslims, Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Arifi explains the proper way to beat ones wife.
Muhammad Al-Arifi: Men beat women more often than women beat men. I said that some women beat their husbands because this happens, but it is rare, and there is no need to hold conferences on wives who beat their husbands. I believe this is less prevalent, because by nature, the body of the man... In most cases, Allah made the body of men stronger than the body of women. Therefore, you and your sister... You may be taller than your mother, right? If your mother is ill, you may be able to carry her, but she cannot carry you. Allah created women with these delicate, fragile, supple, and soft bodies, because they use their emotions more than they use their bodies. Therefore, while the man may use beating to discipline his wife, she sometimes uses her tears to discipline him. He gets what he wants by screaming, while she gets what she wants from him by crying and displaying emotions. For men, womens emotions may be fiercer than the strike of a sword.
First, admonish them once, twice, three times, four times, ten times. If this doesnt help, refuse to share their beds. In such a case, the husband does not sleep with his wife, or, in other words, he is angry with her. He gives her the silent treatment, refusing to talk to her. If he comes to eat, and she asks him: How are you? he doesnt answer. If she asks him: Do you want anything? he doesnt answer. He distances himself from her in bed and in conversation, he does not sleep with her, but goes to sleep in another room. He shows her that he is angry with her. If this does not help if the admonishing did no good, and when he goes to sleep in another room, she says: Thank God, hes gone. Now Ive got the whole bed to myself, I will sleep alone in bed and roll over at night as much as I like. If neither method worked with her, what is the third option?
#5
The bidets who wrote up the Delaware University RA program should do a year's intern under this dude so they understand what its like living outside the 'white racist male privilege' environment.
Peasants in the village of Miaohe on the north bank of the Yangzi River say nothing like it had occurred in their lifetimes, nor those of their parents and grandparents. One afternoon in April, for a few grim seconds, the ground shook beneath them. The Wild Cat landslide, long at rest beneath the terraced maize fields, orange-tree groves and earth-brick houses perched on the steep slope, was stirring.
Experts had long worried about the Wild Cat, 17km (10 miles) upstream from the Three Gorges dam in a narrow stretch of reservoir, in the first of the soaring gorges. Last year a coffer-dam built to protect the main dam during construction was blown up. Monitoring of the landslide zone intensified, for fear that the blast might destabilise it. If the Wild Cat's earth and boulders tumbled down the slope, they could wipe out Miaohe and slam tour boats and barges with giant waves.
Officials have long stressed the dam's benefits: a reduction (some say exaggerated) in flooding downstream; the generation of (very expensive) carbon-free power; and the creation of a 660km-long, navigation-friendly reservoir. The official press has largely ignored the many criticisms of the dam. The authorities have rapidly and sometimes brutally crushed protests by some of the more than 1.2m people moved from the reservoir area, and have often poorly compensated them. Allegations abound of resettlement funds lining officials' pockets.
But in the past few months signs have emerged that, in parts of the government at least, the resolute optimism is wavering. China's state-run news agency, Xinhua, was a few days late in reporting Miaohe's problem. When it did, it dutifully cited the official reassurance that there was little imminent risk of the slope's collapse. But it later quoted an official as saying the rise and fall of the reservoir's water level (it was lowered by 11 metres before the flood season began in the summer) had probably caused the tremblejust as experts had forewarned. Xinhua failed to report, however, that the risks will mount. The plan is to raise the reservoir next year to its maximum of 175 metres above sea level, and the seasonal variation will increase to 30 metres. This will pose an even greater threat to landslide-prone sites along the reservoir's main stream, of which scholars at South China Normal University wrote in 2003 that there were 283.
In September Xinhua got punchier. The news agency quoted officials and experts as saying that the dam had caused an array of ecological ills and that if preventive measures were not taken there could be a catastrophe. They said that the reservoir had started to erode the Yangzi's banks in many places and that frequent landslides had been triggered by changes in the water level. A deputy mayor of Chongqing, the municipality to which most of the reservoir belongs, reportedly said that banks had collapsed in 91 places. Another official said frequent geological disasters were putting lives at risk. Water discharged from the dam was threatening the safety of anti-flood embankments downstream, according to a deputy governor of Hubei province (of which Miaohe is part).
Xinhua caused even more of a stir last month by reporting that 4m more people would be relocated by 2020 because of environmental concerns. This was misleading: Chongqing has long had ambitious plans for encouraging urban migration, but they do not envisage forced relocation and are not related to the dam.
Officials have also started to sound more worried about pollution in the reservoir and its tributaries. The ferry across to Miaohe passes through polystyrene fragments and other scattered detritus accumulating behind the dam. In May Xinhua quoted a report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences saying that the reservoir was seriously polluted by pesticides, fertilisers and sewage from passenger boats.
The press's greater openness could reflect political change in Beijing. The dam's construction began in 1993 with strong backing from the country's retired supremo, Deng Xiaoping, and the two top leaders of the time, Jiang Zemin and Li Peng. A museum by the dam displays calligraphy by Mr Jiang and Mr Li and photographs of visits by them. But the current party leader and president, Hu Jintao, and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, are less in evidence. Mr Wen, who is head of the project's construction committee, came in 2003. There is no photograph of Mr Hu at the site during his five years as party chief.
Some officials are still in denial. On October 15th Xinhua quoted Chongqing's mayor as saying that reports of environmental disasters caused by the dam could not stand scrutiny. In Miaohe vigilance appears to have slackened. Last month nearly 100 peasants, who after the tremble had been ordered for safety to shelter in a dark and damp road-tunnel, returned to their homes. Construction of new housing on safer ground, due to be finished in October, will take at least another month.
The peasants expect to keep farming the landslide zone. In an orange grove where a long fissure appeared after the scare in April (no longer visible now), a farmer drops his voice as he grumbles that villagers are not being given enough money to build their new homes. I don't want officials saying I'm giving away secrets, he says nervously. Change is slow to reach the villages.
#5
last month on a Yangtze River cruise, while gazing out the balcony, I noticed that a 2-3 acre parcel had just slide down into the river (I have a photo). It was on a 45 degree (non-inhabited) slope and it must have occurred just moments before the ship came upon the area, since the dust still hadn't settled. It seemed to be in a very remote area, so luckily no one was taken down, but one can see that this will be a chronic problem for the years to come.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Collisions on a foggy freeway Saturday resulted in a pileup of as many as 100 vehicles and the deaths of at least two people, the California Highway Patrol said.
