50-car pileup kills 3 in Florida

by Rob Peters | January 9, 2008 at 01:07 pm | 1343 views | 2 comments

trying to hoist the truck off of another vehicle

UPDATE: The New York Times has reported that the smoke was due to a contained fire that went out of control:

"Local authorities said the smoke was produced by what was supposed to be a controlled burn started Tuesday by state officials to eliminate accumulations of downed timber, but the fire went out of control and burned to the edge of the roadway."

POLK COUNTY -- Smoke and fog formed a deadly combination this morning along Interstate 4 near Haines City. Near-zero visibility caused a massive, deadly pile-up involving at least 50 vehicles, many of them tractor-trailers. A number of vehicles caught fire.

Three people are reported dead and dozens injured. The accidents occured in the area of County Road 557.

I-4, the main traffic artery between Tampa and Orlando, is shut down in both directions between the Polk County Parkway (Hwy 570) and Highway 27 in Haines City. It will likely remain closed the rest of the day.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd calls it "a major disaster." ABC Action Air pilot Captain Al Taylor says he's "never seen anything of this scope."

Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Larry Coggins says the vehicles were involved in "5 to 10 separate crashes."

Medi-vac helicopters are being used to evacuate the injured. School buses are being used to transport stranded motorists from the area.