It was typical mid-February weather as drivers negotiated the interstate just south of Pueblo last Tuesday morning. The steady wind—not unusual as the month wanes—buffeted traffic. Just a blustery late winter day. Then nature took the wheel.
Without warning, normally negotiable east-west winds, suddenly, violently erupted into “a wall of dust,” erasing all visibility. Howling winds grew, blending with the sound of crunching metal as cars, trucks and semis violently melted into one another on both sides of Colorado’s busiest north-south artery.
“It was surreal, like driving into nothingness,” said George Autobee who was caught in the middle of the crash and chaos. “I slowed down,” with the traffic, said Autobee, but it was too late. “I should have stopped.” But there was really no chance and, as the chain reaction began, he was hit.
The impact activated his air bag, exploding onto his chest. The blow caused a significant chest injury along with a broken wrist. The unthinkable ‘things like this don’t happen here’ was landing with deadly force.
When Pueblo Assistant Fire Chief Keith Miller got the call, he initially suspected it to be “a car accident with injuries.” It was far worse. It was an epic battle of life and death for drivers. February 17th suddenly became “a mass casualty” event.
As Miller got nearer to the scene, the skies grew darker. “You could see a cloud (of dust),” he recalled. Some news reports have characterized the scene as ‘dustbowl like,’ and straight out of the 1940’s film classic, “Grapes of Wrath.” But this was real in both violence and intensity.
Snow that might have otherwise covered the ground this time of year corralling topsoil, has been rare in southern Colorado and along the Front Range. As a result, wind-fueled and unending volumes of dirt and dust simply flew for hours, dropping the temperature and complicating rescue efforts.
At the scene, Miller said, “It looked like multi-high speed crashes…cars mixed with semis.” It was not unlike a Hollywood disaster movie set, only real. There was even one overturned semi. Its cargo, livestock
“I don’t know the exact length of the scene,” Miller said, but estimated the twisted metal, shattered glass and trapped men and women stretching to perhaps “150 yards or more.”
With the highway shut down in both directions first responders from Pueblo, including both city and county fire, city and county law enforcement, Colorado State Patrol, medical first responders, and scores of emergency vehicles rushing to render aid were all frantically trying to gauge the challenge control the situation.
First responders were simultaneously rescuing people trapped inside mangled vehicles and, at the same time, extricating victims killed in the pile up. The difference between life and death, Miller said, was sometimes a matter of inches. Some people, he said, miraculously “just walked away.”
While public safety drills are regularly practiced for readiness in the event of incidents like this, the sheer volume of wreckage and carnage from last Tuesday’s incident was nearly overwhelming. But in this case, all the practice, all the drills, paid off.
Within minutes of the first arriving units, “170 personnel,” each with a job, put their training to work, said Pueblo County Sheriff’s spokesperson Gayle Perez said.
In all, said Colorado State Patrol Information Officer Sherri Mendez, the scene was covered. “We had over 20 agencies” on the ground. Just as important, she said, were agency dispatchers who were handling a torrent of calls and coordinating and assigning units. “I could not praise them enough,” said Mendez.
Equal praise goes to the men and women on the ground. Their work was performed under not only in a nearly surreal setting, but with a constant buffering of winds, some reaching 60-plus miles per hour. “Visibility,” said Fire Chief Miller, “would go from ‘I could see everything to I can’t see fifty feet in from of me.’”
While first responders were busy administering aid, extricating others trapped in their vehicles and transporting victims, the Humane Society of Pikes Peak was also lending a hand. Its workers were there to rescue up to 30 sheep trapped in an overturned tractor trailer while also rounding up other animals that escaped from the vehicle and were running loose along the interstate.
Perez said the mashup closed both directions of the interstate for nearly twelve hours. So far, five fatalities have been recorded with at least 29 victims hospitalized with a range of injuries. Interestingly, the fatalities all occurred on the northbound side of the interstate. While huge pile-ups are regularly reported in other locations across the country, the February 17th incident near Pueblo may be Colorado’s first of a similar magnitude.
