TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Polk Pileup Kills 4, Injures 38

News Channel 8 photo by PETER MASA

Drivers involved in the 70-car accident on Interstate 4 said the mixture of smoke and fog was so thick, they couldn’t see their feet after getting out of their vehicles.

ADVERTISEMENT

By GRETCHEN PARKER | The Tampa Tribune
and BILLY TOWNSEND | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 10, 2008

Live Updates

POLK CITY - The usually unremarkable pulse of workday traffic on Interstate 4 seized to a hellish halt Wednesday morning, when opaque fog and smoke triggered a chain of crashes that killed at least four people and injured 38.

At least 70 vehicles rammed into each other in 10 separate crashes along a two-mile stretch of I-4 starting at 4:35 a.m. Officials are investigating how much a nearby controlled burn contributed to the massive pileup, which closed the interstate between U.S. 27 and the Polk Parkway. They said they don't know when that portion will reopen.

One of the fatalities was confirmed Wednesday night: Darren Scott Snyder was a maintenance worker at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Five victims were seriously injured.

Drivers and their passengers described the crash site as a terrifying and surreal dark cave, filled with the sounds of crunching metal, screams and explosions.

Several said they saw nothing more than a sudden whiteout, then the hoods of their cars buckling as they slammed into the vehicle in front of them. There were no brakes squealing, they said, as most didn't have enough warning to try.

In the seconds afterward, those who could get out of their cars said the fog and smoke was so dense they couldn't see their feet. Those who could walk and had flashlights made their way to a rest stop about a half mile away.

As they walked, in the pitch black and the smoke, they heard screams for help from cars they could not see. From other cars, they heard calls of "You OK? You OK?" as motorists tried to check on each other. Many scrambled away from their crumpled cars, terrified of unseen traffic slamming them again from behind.

"It's the worst traffic accident I've been involved with," said Harvey Craven of Polk County's emergency medical services. "It was absolutely horrific."

Twenty-six highway patrol troopers and six traffic homicide investigators spent Wednesday walking among the charred and twisted cars, trucks and semi tractor-trailers, trying to sort out what had happened.

They went from vehicle to vehicle, marking and numbering each. The last of the injured was taken out just before noon. The fourth, and final, fatality wasn't found until about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, 12 hours after the first crash.

Initially the Department of Transportation blamed the crash on the smoke from the controlled burn alongside the interstate. Later in the day, state forestry officials disputed that, saying they needed to complete their investigation of the events that created the enveloping fog.

"We're looking at all kinds of things, weather, fuel on the ground," said Gary Zipperer, Florida Division of Forestry spokesman. "We're not at liberty to say exactly that smoke caused this accident. I know there was fog on the road….This is a low area and fog oftentimes sets in here. We want to do a full investigation to make sure we get this thing right."

The smoke originated from the controlled burn started on Tuesday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission was trying to clean up debris in the dried-up swampland along the interstate, but the fire got out of control when weather conditions changed, said Chris Kitner of the Florida Division of Forestry.

Forestry workers responded to the fire and alerted the highway patrol, which set up nighttime patrols along I-4 to watch for smoke, though the weather service had predicted that the wind would be blowing the smoke away from the road.

Signs warning people of the smoke were placed on the interstate, but Kitner said she didn't know if they were illuminated.

Conditions were clear throughout the night, said Florida Highway Patrol trooper Larry Coggins. All of a sudden, though, on the stretch near Polk City, "it went dark."

Coggins called it a "micro weather phenomenon."

Smoke lingering in the low-lying area gave water particles in the air something to cling to, and that caused something much thicker than simple fog or smoke, said National Weather Service meteorologist Ernie Jillison.

It created what several drivers described as a wall.

Hearing a report of an accident, Polk County Deputy Carlton Turner drove east on I-4 and "like many others disappeared into a wall of smoke and fog," Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said.

When he stopped, a vehicle crashed into him from behind, Judd said. He tried to get out of the vehicle when his car was hit again. Back inside the car, he was hit a third time.

He drove about 75 yards to a clearing in the road, but returned to the crash scene on foot.

Judd said Turner told him, "I did all I could. I watched a man burn to death today, and I heard others screaming and hollering and crying."

Turner was home recovering Wednesday.

Survivor Stories

Eyewitness accounts relayed a nightmare scenario of zero visibility, jarring crashes and panic.

Chris Adams, 17, was riding in a silver Chevrolet Malibu, traveling to Tampa from his home in Altamonte. He was going to be sworn into the Air Force's Delayed Enlistment Program so he could join the military as soon as he graduated from high school.

He heard the driver say "Hang on!" as the vehicle veered left. Then Adams saw the bed of a tractor trailer.

"We slid right into it," Adams said.

His knees slammed into the dashboard.

"It was just a couple seconds," he said, shaking his head. "It was crazy. I thought I was going to die."

The wounded, the weary and the dazed were left wandering the interstate for hours after the crash, trying to make sense of what happened.

Robert Barnes was in car No. 27.

He knew this by the number, spray-painted big and orange on the driver's door of his Subaru station wagon. His car seemed so small in the carnage of metal, he said later, after walking back to the site with a sheriff's deputy.

Barnes, an electronics technician who lives in Lakeland, had been just a few minutes out the door — still an hour and half from his job on the other side of Orlando — when he slowed for the fog. Then he saw a red pickup truck in front of him, and he swerved right, but not in time.

Another car clipped him before he could climb out, uninjured.

He used the penlight on his keychain, pointed toward the ground at his feet, to hike through the weeds and high grass. He followed a fence alongside the interstate until he realized he was walking up an embankment toward a rest stop where the other drivers and passengers who could walk had gathered.

As he waited for his wife to pick him up from a sheriff's office substation in Winter Haven, he downplayed to news reporters what he had been through. It was nothing, he said.

Still, he was grateful. "I can't believe I'm standing here," he said.

For others, the horror was less easy to shake.

"It was absolutely apocalyptic," said Brian Keck, 35, of Clearwater, who called 911 about 4:45 a.m. after he and his wife drove eastbound into the fog and smoke. "I haven't been able to sleep because of the screams that I hear. I can't get that out of my head."

Keck had been in Orlando visiting his son, he said, and he had yet to go to bed. His wife Belinda, a nurse, had to be at work by 7 a.m. They began driving west on I-4 about 3:30 a.m.

He remembered seeing a truck that had hit a car. It was on fire. His wife wanted to stop and try to help. Keck told her to pull off near the median, and keep driving.

"The first thought is survival," he said. "The second thought is the feeling that you get deep within that there are humans around me dying and suffering and there's nothing I can do to help."

They slowed to 10 mph, using the yellow line of the highway median as a guide. It took about four minutes to get through the smoke, he said, but "It seemed like an hour."

Keck said he felt guilty for not stopping, but he worried that if they got out, they likely would be hit by another vehicle and killed.

"It's something I will deal with for the rest of my life."

Hospitals Slammed

The sheer magnitude of the accident took many emergency workers by surprise.

Of the estimated 70 vehicles involved — in the eastbound and westbound lanes — about 20 were tractor-trailers and tankers, authorities said. Six tractor-trailers burned completely. At least one tanker overturned and caught fire, sparking a blaze that spread to a dozen other vehicles.

In all, about 200 officials from a dozen state, county and city agencies helped sort through the carnage, identifying the wounded and moving the uninjured out of harm's way.

Victims were transported to Tampa General and other hospitals in Orlando, Lakeland, Haines City and Winter Haven.

Jennifer Oliver, spokeswoman for Lakeland Regional Medical Center, said the facility's emergency preparedness plan was activated as soon as staff learned of the crash.

A separate triage area for trauma victims was created in the emergency room. Seven patients initially arrived, she said, with two in critical condition.

Makeshift command centers were created at rest areas and nearby truck stops. One such center was at I-4 and State Road 559, inside a Love's Truck Stop. Employees there watched news reports on CNN about the devastation just a mile or so away.

Foggy History

This stretch of Interstate 4 has claimed lives in the fog before.

In December 1970, just north of Lakeland, smoke from a muck fire combined with fog to cause a chain-reaction crash of 17 cars and trucks. Seven people were injured.

The following October, one person died and more than 25 people were hurt in a 50-car pileup near Plant City when a clear night suddenly turned foggy.

The most recent incident was in February 2001. There were no accidents, but low visibility along I-4 forced authorities to close the road. Smoke from an unauthorized burn mixed with fog to reduce visibility to zero.

"We had to close it several different times (in February 2001) and reroute traffic," said Kitner of the forestry division. This is a low, swampy sort of area, though dry. "We have these mucky soils out there and when they dry out they burn and it's hard to extinguish."

Zipperer of the forestry division said that by Wednesday afternoon, the fire was 90 percent contained. After scorching 400 acres on the north side of the interstate, however, it would take time to put out completely.

FHP officials said they don't know when the 15-mile portion of the interstate will be open to traffic. With the smoke and moist night air in the area, they said, the blinding fog was likely to return.

Reporters John W. Allman, Lindsay Peterson, Baird Helgeson, Chris Echegaray, Mike Salinero, Thomas Brennan, Ray Reyes, Keith Morelli, Neil Johnson, Elaine Silvestrini, Mike Wells, TBO producers Beth Gaddis and Kevin Brady and News Channel 8 reporters Krista Klaus, Peter Bernard, Keith Cate and Samara Sodos contributed to this report.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT