Death Toll Rises To 6 After Pileup On Interstate 81 During Snow Squall; Highway Reopens
POTTSVILLE, Pa. (CBS) — Interstate-81 in Schuylkill county reopened overnight after a deadly pileup on Monday. The crash has now claimed the lives of six people and left more than a dozen injured.
The deadly crash, caused by mother nature, shut down the portion of the highway for over 24 hours.
Chopper 3 was over the scene Tuesday. You can see crashed trucks and cars, pieces of vehicles, and scorched highway.
Those drivers were suddenly blinded by a snow squall, unable to navigate on a slippery highway.
The snow squall set up over this part of Interstate 81 and just hammered this area.
Drivers heading into the squall began losing control, setting up a domino effect, a chain reaction nightmare scenario.
Video shot by a man named Mike Moye was obtained by CBS3. The video shows about midway through the pileup.
It happened in the northbound lanes of Interstate 81 just west of Minersville, about 105 miles northwest of Philadelphia on Monday.
Investigators confirmed Wednesday at least six people were killed. Upwards of 60 cars, SUVS, trucks, and other vehicles were involved in what was a tangled heap of metal and wreckage.
Diesel leaking from trucks caught fire. The contents of a box truck fueled it, allowing it to burn for almost 20 hours.
The Red Cross assisted those from out of state who were stranded here without transportation.
RELATED: Why Snow Squalls Pose Such a Danger to Drivers
State Police say snow squalls have an inherent unpredictable nature with how they impact roadways with higher speed limits.
Troopers advise those caught in a squall to do what they feel is safest, meaning staying in your car with your seatbelt on. Others may think getting out is safer, and if that's the case, police want you to run far away.
"Get out of your car and run, like here but run up into the woods. Run down over the embankment, run to the other side. There's intervening space between the four lanes, run as far as you can from this. And I can tell you, you're not going to do well as a car is spinning out of control and comes at you 80 miles an hour and hits you. Things aren't going to be good for you," Pennsylvania State Police Trooper David Boehm said.
A man in the video was nearly hit by an out-of-control car.
PennDOT inspected the highway before it reopened. That could've included a milling operation to remove some of the charred surfaces.
CBS3's Jan Carabeo contributed to this report.
