Woman survives 100-plus-car pileup, crawls out back window on I-35 in Fort Worth

[Omaha Steve]

Source: KHOU 11

Alicia Stone says she's still processing what happened Thursday morning; at least six people were killed in the rush-hour crash.

Author: Lauren Zakalik

FORT WORTH, Texas — No one ever leaves their home in the morning to go to work thinking they'll be part of a massive and tragic wreck; Alicia Stone certainly didn't.

"I was headed into work, and we had just talked in the morning that it would be a little bit safer maybe to try the toll road," said Stone.

We know now what ended up happening on that Interstate 35 southbound toll road, just north of downtown Fort Worth Thursday morning: a pileup of at least 133 vehicles, leaving at least six people dead, on a morning colder and slicker than most of us can remember.

"I was hitting my brakes, they wouldn't work," Stone said. "After that, I got hit probably four or five times from behind, just from people piling up, from the hits. So, I stayed in my car until there were no more hits."

Video: https://khou.com/embeds/video/287-ab3286fd-9982-4770-bde3-fe45fc9fc261/iframe?jwsource=cl

Read more: https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/woman-survives-massive-100-plus-car-pileup-crawls-out-back-window-on-i-35-in-fort-worth/287-14ab6388-6bce-49a0-a75b-868dcea35734

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Saw The Chopper Video This Morning

Wow, what a mess. And 6 dead.
Nothing worse than driving on smooth ice. Dense fog is a close second, I suppose.
There was a phone video showing a FedEx semi plowing into the back of another truck. Clearly the driver was going to fast for icy roads.
6 dead. What a shame.

[MicaelS]

2. The politicians are going after the company....

That owns the toll road. Apparently they did not pre-treat the road that day. They did it on Wednesday, but not on Thursday. They were "checking" the surface.

[AllaN01Bear]

3. i am tired of the privatization of public property. blame that on raygun.

[MicaelS]

5. Agreed 100% n/t

[Baitball Blogger]

6. +1

[bronxiteforever]

7. +100 Absolutely

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. My son reported that they had sanded the express lanes, but had not yet treated the regular lanes

where all the truck traffic travels. It was an overpass, so "bridge pavement freezes before roadway" applies.

The trucks especially should have be going much slower. The Fed Ex tractor trailer, and then the next one (in the horrible videos) where clearly going WAY too fast for conditions.

[MicaelS]

9. This happen in the Toll lanes. n/t

[yellowdogintexas]

14. Yep. Not maintained by TXDOT. I 35 itself is TXDOT responsibility

and you can see the difference in the overhead views.

Another local DUer posted yesterday about the weather. If the weather were warm, it would have been "scattered showers" or "isolated storms" - the kind that pour down on one spot and miss everything surrounding it. The kind where it is pouring down on one side of the street but the other side is dry. This is not unusual around here. Because it was in the 20s, it came down as sleet and freezing rain, with ice under the storms and dry pavement all around. One could be scooting along on dry pavement, hit a big patch of ice unexpectedly and lose control of the vehicle. Weather would have been reporting on highway conditions,without knowing locations of these more dangerous locations. I think this may partially account for the speed of the vehicles

I expect the FWPD investigation will find this may have contributed.

From my point of view I know this:

The south bound lanes are downhill
If accidents occured on the northbound side, to my knowledge they have not been reported
The tollway was treated by the management company not the state
The actual Interstate was treated by TXDOT
The precipitation was sporadic and heavy in spots while dry in others. (we had nothing here)
Everything was complicated by the darkness and early morning rush hour.
It has been at least 5 years since our area has had winter weather; our winters have been unseasonably warm.

My brother in law and his wife are both FWPD officers; he was one of the first to arrive on the scene while she ended up in traffic control, closing lanes and redirecting traffic

Their input will be very interesting indeed.

[dalton99a]

10. +1. Hope there are lawsuits.

[PJMcK]

13. Just imagine the insurance claims! (n/t)

[FakeNoose]

23. These should be wrongful death suits

Gross negligence! If the private contractor cannot maintain the highway then the road must be closed for dangerous conditions. Let people be late for work, let them complain, I don't care. The people of Texas deserve better.

I live in Pennsylvania, where we have lots of snow, lots of roads, and lots of hills. Our PA drivers have learned how to drive in icy conditions. Nobody hits the highway and jams on the gas. Many of us stay home until it's safe, the ones who must go to work drive slowly and carefully.

[LeftInTX]

18. Awful!

[Sapient Donkey]

22. I wonder what effect the barriers had on the overall size of this

The roads being a narrow two lane channel that locks cars inside. Curious if that increased the scale since it limited the number avoidance maneuvers, or if it contained the damage by preventing some of those trucks from taking out more cars. Would have the damage been as severe if many of those cars didn't meet a hard stop?

[onecent]

4. I pray for everyone!

[usaf-vet]

11. Those of us that live in the northern states and see icy roads are used to seeing warning signs at..

... bridge (elevated ) roads. We know the "overpasses" require special cautions. Unfortunately for southern states that is not common knowledge.

I'll bet ["I was hitting my brakes, they wouldn't work,"] her brakes were working but she was "standing" on them. Snow and ice country drivers know to TAP your brake don't stomp on them.

But in her defense chain reaction crashes are a different beast. She could have stopped with proper braking only to be repeatedly hit from behind. Glad she survived.

[Jimbo S]

12. With ABS now

it's best to hold down and not tap.

[usaf-vet]

17. Agreed but the variability of the possible conditions makes it hard to have a fixed dirrection.

BUT stay in the car until all crashing STOPS.

[Baclava]

15. Nothing works on ice, tires are not contacting road, it don't matter

" I stayed in my car until there were no more hits"

smartest move, never leave your cage of steel and become a crash dummy on the open road

[yellowdogintexas]

16. she could still have been on a dry spot then hit ice

and then hit from behind by other cars doing the same thing.

TXDOT would have lit up the big digital warning boards but I can't remember where they are up in that part of the city

[LeftInTX]

20. I live in South Texas: When there is ice, stay home!

Ice is our most common winter precip...

We get ice storms, which I rarely saw up north......

I think it has to do with our climate, which has a warm atmosphere, (rain, but most commonly drizzle) but for some reason the surface is below freezing and we get ice.

Up north, ice occurred in patches. (Mostly commonly at stop signs...probably from the thaw/freeze) Down here, it's everywhere.

Snow OTOH is not ice.

[usaf-vet]

19. In the mid 1960s I was station in the south. A freak snow and ice storm hit the region.....

.... after several hours of on-base and off-base accidents happening the base commander to his credit issued an immediate base-wide order that no military vehicles or private vehicles could be driven on base unless the driver had a driver's license from northern states where snow and ice storms were common.

I can't give you any data on before and after the order's accident rates. But it was a storm with less than 2" sticking on the ground.

Us "damn Yankees" got a laugh for the day.

[GulfCoast66]

21. Does not matter where you are from on black ice driving is really impossible.

And that phenomenon is more common in the upper south. Look at the storm this week and the forecast for next. Ice across the mid south and lower Ohio valley and snow in the north.

On black ice just don’t drive. Sounds like these folks were driving on dry pavement one moment and then hit ice.

Tragic.

[LeftInTX]

25. It's a "climate atmosphere" thing

Up north above freezing: It snows
Down south below freezing: Freezing rain

In the south, a warm atmosphere is what causes freezing rain, drizzle, and frog (freezing fog)

I'm from Wisconsin and never experienced freezing rain until I came to Texas.

I missed the great Wisconsin ice storm of March 1976, because I lived too far north.

[LeftInTX]

26. I'm from Wisconsin and did not see an ice storm until I moved to Texas

"2 inches sticking to the ground", sounds more like snow to me.

Ice storms are more dangerous than 2 inches of snow...

Sure, southerners will have trouble driving in 2 inches of snow, but no one is safe on ice.

Don't know where in the south this was....

[rickyhall]

24. Privatization is such wonderful thing.

No maintenance, repair. Power companies won't trim the trees until they pull the lines down, why power gets cut when there are storms, handy.

[TexasBushwhacker]

27. FWIW, the owners of the trees are responsible to keep

them trimmed. More importantly, they shouldn't plant trees were they will hit power lines.

Regarding the maintenance of the toll road, people pay to use the toll roads so they can drive faster. Even if they sanded the lanes, no one should have been driving over 50 mph, maybe slower. The video of the FedEx truck I saw, it was probably going 70+.