What a night
If you saw the Baltimore news, you might have seen something about all the accidents on I-95. Amy and I got to see some of them up close. Not that we were in them, thankfully. But we did get to spend over 2 hours sitting on I-95 northbound just outside White Marsh.
It was bizarre. The section of the accidents that I personally saw looked awful. Cars were thrown into each other, stacked on top of each other, and generally strewn across the road. And apparently there were more accidents like that both north and south of where we were. I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything that bad, or been in a situation where there was not just one, but multiple accidents so close to each other.
It was also sobering. We watched what turned out to be Medevac helicopters go in and out. Ambulances wailed by for the first hour and a half. A few would leave every now and then, but more would show up shortly after. I lost count after a dozen or so.
I still haven't found out what actually happened. I heard rumors from everyone else standing around on the highway of 25 car pileups (which turned out to be right), 40 car pileups, jack-knifed tractor trailers, and so on. Plus, environmental trucks kept arriving, leading to all sorts of further speculation.
We never even made it to where we were going. Eventually we had to turn around and go back. But far worse apparently happened to a lot of people.
October 16, 2004 07:45 PMHi,
I don't know you but I read your post and I am glad you are ok. It is sobering when these kind of things happen. I was stuck in traffic for hours once because of a bad accident up ahead. Made me realise how impermanent life is here.
God bless you.
Catez
Hey man, I'm glad you guys weren't in that mess. I talk to people that have been in accidents all day at work, and it's kind of scary how I get inured to the actual damage that can happen in a car wreck. Then something like this happens to remind you of it.
On a completely different note, how'd you like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? (The book not the movie, that is.)
Pondered by gosey at October 18, 2004 07:31 PMNathan,
I'm glad to hear you're all right. In the past two years there have been a number of significant accidents on 95 near Baltimore. Last year, of course, that truck fell off an overpass and smashed into a tanker setting off a huge explosion.
This one was significant; at least (apparently) no one was killed. Reports say that that the sun came out and reflected off newly fallen sleet that made it difficult to see and that led to the series of accidents.
On the news last night they said that they were trying to determine why only one of the accidents occurred northbound. I would venture that if it occurred in the afternoon, that would be because the sun was in the west. Northbound/Southbound 95 are probably more accurately called Eastbound/Westbound 95; so I guess that the sun probably affected more people headed south (west.)
Pondered by David Gerstman at October 19, 2004 04:28 AMThat seems most probable. Or, at least more likely than an Al-Qaeda scheme, which is what some people standing around on I-95 then were proposing.
Pondered by maphet at October 19, 2004 08:47 AM