Handling the Worst Crash Ever in Virginia

Public Roads, May, 2001 by Melissa A. Winn

"The challenge with this storm is that the storm came so quickly, and at the same time, accidents were occurring, and traffic was not moving," Kilpatrick said. The lack of traffic moving at regular speeds keeps the chemicals from being spread effectively along the road.

"My primary concern when I arrived on the scene was the size of the accident -- the number of vehicles and trucks in such a small area. Most of the accident was less than the length of two football fields. All the vehicles were piled up, packed. It looked like a tremendous undertaking," said Kilpatrick.

VDOT does not typically play a role in the investigative efforts of the state police unless state police require copies of road plans or other such documents that VDOT can provide.

Working Together

Because fire and rescue squads appeared on the scene first and were the only responding agencies on the scene for the first couple of hours, their command post at the head of the scene served as a sort of unified command post for several hours after all agencies began working together to clear the scene. Typically, fire and rescue officials turn over the command of the crash scene to state police when the police arrive.

"We tried to use our command post as a unified command post, but it was not particularly unified," Robertson reported. "It was a long event in duration, so our command was not terminated until about 4 p.m."

Although there was a lack of a real unified command and some confusion because of that, the responding agencies worked diligently together to reroute traffic and to clear the damaged and abandoned vehicles off the road.

At the scenes of some crashes of less magnitude in surrounding areas, the roads were not completely cleared for a day and a half. For example, as the result of a fire, a nearby interstate was not opened to traffic until the next afternoon.

But the recovery efforts on I-95 were an impressive success. One lane was opened to southbound traffic at 8:00 p.m. that evening. All lanes of I-95 were open by 10 p.m.

"What made the recovery successful," said Kilpatrick, "was that fire and rescue, the state police, the towing people, and VDOT have ail been together before on a scene like this, although not to this magnitude. What really impressed me was that everyone was comfortable with each other, and that goes a long way to getting the scene cleared and the roads opened."

Evaluation and Improvement

On March 20, state and local officials met in Fredericksburg, Va., to assess the performance and response to the I-95 crash, to evaluate the investigation of the crash, and to identify any areas for improvement.

"We've made a standard procedure for these incidents," Kilpatrick said. "VDOT sponsors or tries to gather together the responding agencies to see what went right, what went wrong. This also builds teamwork among all responding agencies. We've been doing this for a number of years to improve our response to incidents."

One of the overriding concerns addressed at the meeting was communication. Local and state agencies do not have a common communications system, which caused a number of complications at the scene of this incident. The complications included the inaccurate reporting to all agencies of the number of vehicles involved and the delay of VDOT and state police reporting to the scene.