Massive overhead sign crashes on highway: no-one hurt!
Published: August 11, 2005
A massive overhead sign collapsed onto Interstate 64 during rush hour Wednesday morning, shutting down eastbound traffic virtually all day, but somehow not killing or injuring any one. (See popup photo)
The bizarre accident near Northampton Boulevard was caused when the hydraulic bed of a tractor-trailer dump truck inexplicably rose and smashed into the 120-foot-long sign structure, which plummeted 23 feet to the interstate.
A Norfolk woman’s car was crushed beneath the open bed of the dump truck when the tumbling sign snapped the truck in half, flipping the truck bed onto her car.
Incredibly, the 28-year-old woman, Tiffany Hairston, was able to crawl through the mangled metal and walk away from the wreck.
After an extensive cleanup, the Virginia Department of Transportation reopened the last eastbound lane at 3:25 p.m., about seven hours after the accident.
At its worst, traffic stretched six miles west to Chesapeake Boulevard. Repairs to the highway could take months.
Hairston was driving to work toward the Interstate 264 interchange around 8:40 a.m. when the accident occurred.
Eastbound traffic was flowing normally and Hairston was behind the tractor-trailer, which was not carrying a load. Her Honda Accord had just passed the Northampton Boulevard exit when she saw the truck drive under the sign.
In an instant, the truck’s bed smashed into the sign and the structure , which stretch ed across the three eastbound lanes and two HOV lanes , fell onto the highway. Hairston could not explain exactly what happened next, but said the bed catapulted toward her.
“After that, I don’t know anything because it was completely dark,” she said.
The bed fell on her car, flattening the passenger side but forming a 3-foot crevice large enough to allow Hairston to crawl out through the rear window.
“I don’t know how she did it,” said Sgt. Larry Montgomery of the Virginia State Police.
After the accident, Hairston stood with her husband, who had raced to the scene after hearing of the wreck, on the shoulder of the highway, her head resting on her folded arms.
“I thank God,” she said. “He blessed me through this. Find the Lord if you have not found him yet.”
State Police are still not sure how the truck hit the overhead sign and why it fell.
The structure is built to withstand hurricane-force winds, said VDOT spokeswoman Lauren Hansen. Police said the truck’s bed struck the sign with enough force to rip the bed from the truck’s frame.
The Kenworth truck, owned by P.L. Duncan Trucking Inc., skidded about 250 feet down the interstate before it jackknifed on the guardrail. The truck spilled about 120 gallons of diesel fuel and an unknown amount of hydraulic fluid.
Somehow, speeding traffic on the five eastbound lanes avoided hitting the sign and creating a chain-reaction pileup.
Witnesses called 911 at 8:38 a.m. Within two minutes, firefighters and rescue personnel arrived and the hazardous-materials team began to contain the spill.
Paramedics evaluated Hairston at the scene, but she refused medical attention. The truck driver, James Mills Jr., 50, of Burkeville, was not injured.
Mills was cited for an over-height violation, said Trooper John Havrilla. State Police are still trying to determine whether the truck malfunctioned or driver error contributed to the accident.
Traffic was detoured onto city roads until the high-occupancy vehicle lanes could be reopened, just before noon. Two eastbound lanes were reopened at 1:45 p.m. Less than two hours later, the last eastbound lane was reopened.
Mills declined to discuss the accident with The Virginian-Pilot. At the time of the accident, he was headed toward Chesapeake to pick up a load.
“We’re not sure what happened,’’ said Havrilla, who is investigating the crash. Mills “never knew his trailer was up. The next thing he knows, he ran off the road.”
Officials at Duncan Trucking in Columbia , about 45 miles west of Richmond, declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the smashed sign was a mangled mess across the highway. VDOT workers toiled furiously to cut up the structure and its support beams on the HOV lanes.
The accident frustrated thousands of commuters who were stuck in traffic for hours, either on the interstate or on feeder roads.
Moments after the truck slammed into the sign, technicians at VDOT’s Smart Traffic Center in Virginia Beach saw the sign structure lying on the highway, but they were not sure how it got there, said Tim Fox , the center’s control room supervisor.
Using remote-controlled cameras, they zoomed in for a closer look and saw the truck bed. Still, they had no idea that underneath lay Hairston’s crumpled green Honda.
Engineers called State Police and VDOT’s Highway Safety Service Patrol.
VDOT closed access to the HOV lanes by lowering the entrance gates. At the time of the accident, HOV traffic was moving westward toward Norfolk Naval Station.
Dozens of motorists were caught between the fallen sign and the closed gates. They sat for hours before police let them out.
After the wreck, Norfolk changed the timing of traffic signals on major roads to accommodate the extra traffic from the highway.
For example, an additional 35 seconds were added to traffic lights on Military Highway . Also, lights along Granby Street near the I-64 off-ramp, and Little Creek Road near Chesapeake Boulevard and Military Highway, were retimed to allow for more traffic.
Nationally, accidents in which trucks strike overhead signs are rare, Montgomery said.
In 2003, a gravel truck destroyed an overhead sign bridge on Interstate 35 near Austin, Texas. The state eventually replaced the sign for $100,000.
In June 2004, a dump truck crashed into an overhead sign on the Crosstown Expressway in Tampa when the truck’s bed rose. The sign fell onto another truck but, as in Wednesday’s accident, no injuries were reported.
The Norfolk highway sign costs about $250,000 to $350,000. Repairs could be extensive. Besides replacing the entire sign and its supports, the foundations supporting the sign may need repair, too.
If workers have to replace the foundations, then part of the highway’s shoulder will be torn up to remove the concrete pad that the sign sits on.
VDOT plans to post a temporary directional sign for Northampton Boulevard .
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