Officially, winter doesn’t begin until the winter solstice, which isn’t until December 21 this year. But as a freshman discovering weed for the first time might ask, what even is winter, like, really, man? Because in Colorado on Sunday, a snowy, icy Interstate 70 led to a 20-car pileup and then a separate 30-car pileup, Colorado’s KDVR reports. Thankfully, no serious injuries have been reported from the crashes, but if winter weather causes 50 cars to crash in less than 15 minutes, I feel like it’s officially winter, whether the star-knowers agree or not.
The first pileup took place in Eagle County near mile 130 at around 11:30 am and involved 20 cars. Then, at 11:42 am, another 30 cars crashed near mile 119, bringing the total to 50 cars in less than 15 minutes. Yikes. Visibility was also down to only about 500 feet at the time of the pileups, and that wasn’t even the worst of the winter weather, with KDVR reporting that wintry conditions were expected to get worse throughout the day. As a result of the crashes, authorities ended up closing I-70 in both directions until they could get all the cars off the road.
While no injuries have been reported, considering the timing of the pileups it’s probably safe to assume that many of those involved were driving back home from Thanksgiving. So while the people involved in the pileups are probably grateful it wasn’t worse, that’s a pretty terrible way to end your holiday weekend. Especially when it’s freezing cold outside.
According to the Denver Post, Colorado State Patrol didn’t answer questions about what ultimately caused each pileup, although the outlet notes, “Cameras in the area of the crash at about noon Sunday showed snow-covered roads,” as well as “blowing snow.” Throw in ice and low visibility, and you can probably hazard a pretty decent guess at how this whole thing got started.
Not the only pileups
That said, those weren’t the only pileups over the weekend, nor were they the only pileups on I-70. In fact, they weren’t even the largest pileups along I-70 over the weekend. According to the Independent, we also saw a 45-car pileup in Putnamville, Indiana, on Saturday morning that a spokesperson for the Riley Fire Department called the “largest wreck [its] firefighters have ever seen.” Somehow no one was seriously injured in that pileup, either. However, we’re still talking about a pretty gnarly multi-car crash that took hours to clean up and reopen the highway.
“Folks if you could stay home, just you stay home. People just need to drive smart when the snow starts falling, reduce your speed, make sure you’re buckled up and lets just all be safe out there,” Indiana State Police Public Information Officer Matt Ames posted on Facebook. “This shutdown is expected to be at least six hours to get cleanup. We’ve got multiple commercial vehicles and of course multiple passenger vehicles involved in this.”
Of course, this kind of thing is pretty much inevitable when you combine winter storms with holiday travel. And this year’s storm did more than cause a few pileups. According to the New York Times, it also led to the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights across the country, with most of the cancellations impacting the Midwest. Chicago, for example, got between four and 10 inches of snow depending on where you were in the city,
Ironically, one passenger, a 64-year-old lawyer named Randy Sutton, who got stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on his way back home from visiting Florida, told the New York Times he specifically booked his flight back to Vancouver through Chicago, hoping to avoid travel delays. “The irony is that the last three times I went through Denver, I was delayed because of weather,” Sutton said. “I chose O’Hare this time and may be delayed again. The weather gods seem to be against me.”
