Indiana Pileup Shuts Down I-74

Indiana State Police

Crash involving nearly 30 vehicles shuts down I-74 in Indiana; 13-vehicle pile-up shuts down I-70 - Heavy snowfall contributed to pileups involving dozens of vehicles and shutdown two major highways in Indiana, State Police said Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said they were working to remove the vehicles and clean up the roadways.

Heavy snowfall and a driver going too fast for the conditions contributed to a pile-up involving 13 cars– including nine tractor-trailers– that has shut down Interstate 70 in east central Indiana, State Police said. Several other smaller crashes on westbound lanes of I-70 were also attributed to the pileup reported around 10:30 a.m., near Richmond in Wayne County.

Two crashes involving about 40 vehicles were also reported in a half-mile stretch of Interstate-74, about 60 miles of Wayne County on the Indiana/Ohio state line, police said. The main crash involved about 29 vehicles, including 17 tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles, according to a state police report.

“We had a squall of wind and snow that came through which caused whiteout conditions,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Stephen Wheeles said of the I-74 crashes, which sent six people to the hospital, some with serious but not believed to be life-threatening injuries.  “It is believed those conditions along with the roadway conditions caused a chain reaction crash.”

Photos of the I-70 incident show multiple tractor-trailers piled up on a snow blanketed roadway. Some of the vehicles are overturned. Indiana State Police Sgt. John Bowling said three people were transported to hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.

State transportation officials had warned about possible hazardous road conditions for Tuesday’s morning commute, with several inches of snow and strong wind gusts in the forecast for much of Indiana. Sub-freezing temperatures and blowing snow have made roadways slick and hazardous across the state since the weekend.

Eyewitnesses reported low visibility when the incident occurred on the I-70, Indiana Department of Transportation Spokesman Nathan Riggs said.

“Drivers could not see to avoid secondary collisions,” Riggs said. “Road conditions were not snow-covered or icy at the time of the crash, but snowfall was intense and wind speeds were about 20 mph with 35 mph gusts. This created white-out conditions and motorists were traveling too fast to be able to stop within their visibility range when they encountered the initial crash.”

Bowling said it could take crews hours to clean the roadway. By early afternoon, crews had removed two semis, with seven still to go.

Bowling said the I-70 crash began with a tractor- trailer that was going too fast for the weather conditions.  There was heavy snowfall at the time, with near white-out conditions and some icy patches.

“A second semi came along behind him and there was a chain reaction from there,”  Bowling said.

Westbound traffic was being diverted onto U.S. 35 to State Road 1. Motorists in the area were encouraged to avoid I-70 altogether as other crashes have been reported on the eastbound side of the highway and lane restrictions are in place, creating heavy traffic backups, police said.

The Indiana Department of Transportation deployed nearly 300 plow trucks across the state on Monday in preparation for the winter storm that was expected to make Tuesday’s commute difficult.

Between 1 to 3 inches of snow was expected across central Indiana and strong winds were expected to blow recently-fallen snow, creating hazardous driving conditions on many area roadways, the INDOT said.

The Indiana State Police reported traffic incidents across the state Tuesday morning, many due to “very hazardous, ice and drifting snow.”  In some areas of the state, the authorities warned of some impassable roads.