Jeff Forman/AP
A young girl looks out of her car window as crews work to clear the massive pile-up on I-90 Tuesday in Leroy Township, Ohio.
A 28-car pileup in the midst of a blinding snow storm turned an Ohio freeway into a Christmas Eve nightmare.
The crushing whiteout overwhelmed drivers shortly before 11 a.m. along I-90 in Concord Township, setting off a chain reaction of crumpled bumpers that shut down the roadway until late afternoon.
Jeff Forman/AP
Safety forces try to sort out a massive traffic crash on I-90 near Painseville, Ohio.
“All I could see and hear were cars smashing into each other,” one driver told WKYC Channel 3.
The pileup shut down 11 miles of the interstate about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland along the southern banks of Lake Erie.
Jeff Forman/AP
Safety forces work the scene of the pile-up on Tuesday near Painesville, Ohio.
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A knot of smashed-up cars, trucks and SUVs clogged the blacktop from guardrail to guardrail while dozens of other holiday travelers were stranded behind them.
Jeff Forman/AP
Cars, SUVs and trucks were piled guardrail to guardrail in eastbound lanes of I-90 on Tuesday.
The massive pileup was actually a series of seven crashes, involving 28 vehicles, Ohio State Highway Patrol Lt. Anne Ralston told the Daily News.
There was an especially large number of cars on the road because of Christmas Eve, and the crashes could have been worse, Ralston said.
Jeff Forman/AP
A man walks through the wreckage as he waits for safety crews to clear the massive pile-up on Tuesday.
“The fortunate thing was there was no significant injuries,” she said.
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Jeff Forman/AP
A long line of trucks waits for hours as the debris from the I-90 pile-up is cleared Tuesday.
Emergency crews spent most of the day untangling the mess, finally reopening the road about 5 p.m.
Winter storms paralyzed much of the upper Midwest into New England in the week leading up to Christmas. A half-million electric customers lost power from Michigan to Maine and into Canada from an earlier ice storm.
The Ohio whiteout was part of a multi-state snow blitz on Tuesday into Wednesday.
The scene of the I-90 pileup sits in the middle of what locals call the “snow belt” — a region that’s often pummeled by the strong winds blowing off of Lake Erie.
Car crashes are common during winter snow squalls, authorities said.
With News Wire Services
dmmurphy@nydailynews.com
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=19583
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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