DISASTER Louisiana: Fog & smoke causes catastrophic pileup, 7 dead, 25 injured
- Thread starter mzkitty
- Start date
nomifyle
TB Fanatic
No manchac
Wildweasel
F-4 Phantoms Phorever
I-55 as it runs between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas. Fog central.
Biker Eagle
Contributing Member
Took my granddaughter back to college yesterday evening over Pass Manchac. Figured the traffic or weather would make the trip more hazardous in the morning. Woke up in Thibodaux this morning and the fog was so heavy I couldn’t see anything.
Knew I made the right call.
Knew I made the right call.
mzkitty
I give up.
Smoke, Fog Cause Fiery Pileups On I-55 In Louisiana
2 hours ago
Louisiana State Police spokesperson Sgt. Kate Stegall told weather.com in a phone call that there are multiple crashes in both directions on I-55, with multiple vehicles involved. One of the accidents was a chain reaction crash in Manchac in Tangipahoa Parish.Stegall said she could not immediately confirm how many people may have been injured or killed.
Driver Christopher Vanacor described the scene in an interview with weather.com this afternoon.
"I saw multiple, multiple, multiple cars just crushed, 18 wheelers that you could see were set ablaze," Vanacor said.
"The fog was so dense, it was super, super thick. You could probably only see 10 feet in front of you. It was very, very scary to say the least because, you know, just as much as you can only see 10 feet in front of you, you can only see about 10 to 15 feet behind you. So you didn't know what was coming up from behind."
Vanacor was able to safely exit the interstate, but he continued to hear the crashes happening.
St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Mike Tregre said officials were working to bring in school buses to transport about 100 people stranded on the interstate, according to NOLA.com.
The smoke, from wildfires burning in marshes, could be seen and smelled in New Orleans.
"Smoke from the marsh fires was trapped by a temperature inversion in the atmosphere after sunset on Sunday," weather.com digital meteorologist Chris Dolce said. "That smoke then combined with developing fog overnight, creating what's sometimes called "superfog," which can cause drastically reduced visibility for motorists."
The conditions affected miles of I-55 northwest of New Orleans between Ponchatoula and LaPlace.
This kind of combination has been a hazard for motorists in the past, including in Florida in March 2022.
"Winds speeds might increase some for tonight and early Tuesday, which would limit the development of another round of fog, but smoke from the fires could still be around," Dolce said.
Locals have been complaining for days about the strong smell of smoke due to a fire burning near Bayou Sauvage. The blaze was caused by a lightning strike on July 29, according to WDSU-TV.
Another fire nearby in Lafitte is also sending smoke into the area. This fire was reported at 52% containment Sunday night, according to WVUE-TV.
A dense fog advisory was in effect until 10 a.m. local time Monday for portions of southeast Louisiana and coastal Mississippi. Visibility was one-quarter to one-half mile in some locations.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which was overseeing the fire, is unable to reach the area with fire trucks because it's surrounded by water, WDSU-TV reported. The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans has been pumping water into the area to fight the fire, the report added.
More videos here:
Old Greek
Veteran Member
Idiots flying no matter what. Just came back from a weekend trip visiting family. About 400 miles round trip. Posted speed was 70 mph. I set the cruse at 70 and you would have thought I was going 30 mph. Everyone was passing - and fast! Nuts out there. This was in central and western Pa. More curves than straight. Through the Allegheny mountains.
mzkitty
I give up.
A "super fog" in Louisiana has caused a multi-car pileup on Interstate 55 near New Orleans, Louisiana, after severely lowering visibility, according to police.
The crash, involving at least 158 vehicles, occurred on Monday morning due to heavy fog conditions, according to Louisiana State Police. A long stretch of Interstate 55, a 24-mile-long highway over Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, is expected to be closed "for the foreseeable future," police said.
Interstate 10 and Interstate 310 were also closed as a result of the crash, police said. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed the accident in a statement Monday. Seven fatalities have been confirmed and over 25 individuals were transported to area hospitals with varying degrees of injuries from critical to minor, according to Louisiana State Police.
Additional fatalities could be located once the crash scene is completed cleared, police said.
For hours after the crash, emergency crews worked to clear debris from both northbound and southbound lanes, according to state police. A portion of the crash scene on I-55 caught on fire shortly after the initial incident, authorities said.
The super fog was caused by smoke from marsh fires burning in the region combined with dense fog developing in the area early Monday morning bringing extremely low visibility. In some spots, visibility was near zero, creating dangerous driving conditions.
8 dead, 63 injured in 'super fog' multi-car pileup on Louisiana highway: Police
A "super fog" in Louisiana has caused a multi-car pileup on Interstate 55 near New Orleans after severely lowering visibility, according to police.
abcnews.go.com
Buick Electra
TB2K Girls with Guns
What the heck? Some of those cars look torched!
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A "super fog" in Louisiana has caused a multi-car pileup on Interstate 55 near New Orleans, Louisiana, after severely lowering visibility, according to police.
The crash, involving at least 158 vehicles, occurred on Monday morning due to heavy fog conditions, according to Louisiana State Police. A long stretch of Interstate 55, a 24-mile-long highway over Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, is expected to be closed "for the foreseeable future," police said.
Interstate 10 and Interstate 310 were also closed as a result of the crash, police said. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed the accident in a statement Monday. Seven fatalities have been confirmed and over 25 individuals were transported to area hospitals with varying degrees of injuries from critical to minor, according to Louisiana State Police.
Additional fatalities could be located once the crash scene is completed cleared, police said.
For hours after the crash, emergency crews worked to clear debris from both northbound and southbound lanes, according to state police. A portion of the crash scene on I-55 caught on fire shortly after the initial incident, authorities said.
The super fog was caused by smoke from marsh fires burning in the region combined with dense fog developing in the area early Monday morning bringing extremely low visibility. In some spots, visibility was near zero, creating dangerous driving conditions.
8 dead, 63 injured in 'super fog' multi-car pileup on Louisiana highway: Police
A "super fog" in Louisiana has caused a multi-car pileup on Interstate 55 near New Orleans after severely lowering visibility, according to police.
Barry Natchitoches
Has No Life - Lives on TB
No, Manchac is on the ponchartrain waterways west of the greater New Orleans area and very close to the point where I-10 intersects with I-55. (Causeway is north of the greater New Orleans area, though it does cross over Lake Pontchartrain, too. Lake Pontchartrain is huge.)
The roadway is on a bridge type road similar to the Causeway.
nomifyle
TB Fanatic
A lot of the roadway in that area is bridge like. so sad. The thing about the causeway is its all over open water, this area not quite so much.
Exactly right! We use to face the same thing going down Cajon Pass every morning. It didn't take a genius to see there was dense fog ahead, plus they had traffic cams you could check and you could call the Highway Patrol.
Still people ignored the danger and had the pileup. I never could see why anything was important enough to risk your life over.
Probably the scariest thing is being caught in traffic that is moving 70, 80, 90mph into a wall of white. Snow squalls are usually visable from a safe distance away, plenty of time to slow down or stop to wait it out, but nowhere on the interstate is safe anymore, regardless of the weather. Snow squalls move, fog expands, but fog may be worse as it tends to hang over an area longer than a snow squall.
If nobody can see you, and you can't see where you're going to get out of their way, you're screwed. If there is no exit immediately available, then there is no safe place to ride it out - especially when on a bridge... your safety and survival is out of your hands and it's pucker time.
Driving the interstates nowadays requires careful planning; checking the weather, re-checking the weather, picking a low traffic time to pass through or around major cities, GPS to tell you well in advance of exits/traffic slowdowns/direction of your next turn to avoid last second lane changes in heavy traffic. But nothing prepares you for the idiots that weave in and out of traffic at 90mph (or more) just inches from your bumper, or the line of cars passing a semi while riding each other's bumpers at 70mph+ while texting, or the crazies that pass you on the shoulder.
If nobody can see you, and you can't see where you're going to get out of their way, you're screwed. If there is no exit immediately available, then there is no safe place to ride it out - especially when on a bridge... your safety and survival is out of your hands and it's pucker time.
Driving the interstates nowadays requires careful planning; checking the weather, re-checking the weather, picking a low traffic time to pass through or around major cities, GPS to tell you well in advance of exits/traffic slowdowns/direction of your next turn to avoid last second lane changes in heavy traffic. But nothing prepares you for the idiots that weave in and out of traffic at 90mph (or more) just inches from your bumper, or the line of cars passing a semi while riding each other's bumpers at 70mph+ while texting, or the crazies that pass you on the shoulder.
mzkitty
I give up.
Yeesh.
More at the link + new video. Just terrible.
www.wwltv.com
More at the link + new video. Just terrible.
7 dead, 25 injured, 158 cars damaged in foggy crash on I-55
Videos show cars wrecked, others completely stopped as visibility appeared near zero in some areas.
www.wwltv.com
Biker Eagle
Contributing Member
The whole situation was made worse because the Causeway was closed and that traffic was diverted to I-55 and Slidell twin spans. Pretty much a worst case scenario.
BenIan
Veteran Member
I used to live in LaPlace (the south terminus of I-55). Drove this road many times...it is a long bridge over swamp/bayou from LaPlace all the way past Manchac, on the small sliver of land between Lake Maurepas & Lake Ponchartrain. At Manchac Pass you can look in one direction and see Lake Maurepas & look the other and see Lake Ponchartrain. Not surprised that something like this occurred. Lots of fog is usual in that area and I can tell you, even though I'm a couple of hours away from there now, it's been really foggy this past week all over the state. Back when I drove those roads regularly (15-20 years ago) there was a major accident every week, usually on the Bonnet Carre Spillway which runs from LaPlace to Kenner, clipping the southwest portion of Lake Ponchartrain...same general driving conditions as I-55.
Wildweasel
F-4 Phantoms Phorever
That's why I did most of my travel over the pass via Summit Valley Rd and Cleghorn Canyon Rd, then old Route 66 into San Berdoo. But since Summit Valley Rd has been paved it appears people are flying there nowadays.