Virginia – Interstate 95 is now re-opened after hundreds of vehicles were stuck all night on Monday in freezing temperatures, news arrived on Tuesday.
Among the people who got stranded on the road was a US senator. Although the emergency rescue team successfully freed hundreds of drivers, some got stuck for several hours on side roads.
CBS affiliate WUSA-TV revealed, some people got stranded for more than 24 hours. The emergency crew had been there for help all that time dropping food rations and water.
On Monday, the situation got worse when a truck on the interstate 95 jackknifed and triggered a sudden chain reaction causing other vehicles to lose control, reported the state police.
The lane was blocked from both sides across a 40-mile area of I-95 north. Later that night, after several hours on the road, the travelers started posting about their situation on social media, saying they ran out of water and fuel in the freezing temperature.
Raghavendra and his wife Meera Rao were returning home after visiting their child in North Carolina when the interstate got blocked on Monday. The couple was just 100 feet from an exit but was unable to move for 16 hours or more.
“Not one police (officer) came in the 16 hours we were stuck,” said Meera Rao. No one came. It was just shocking. Being in the most advanced country in the world, no one knew how to even clear one lane for all of us to get out of that mess?”
So far, no death reports have been received from the area of the incident.
During daybreak, crews began to help drivers “get off at any available interchange,” Tweeted the Virginia Department of Transportation.
“Crews will start taking people off at any available interchange to get them – for the southbound queue 143 (Garrison Ville) and 140 (Courthouse) and northbound at exit 104 and exit 110.
NB is 104 (Carmel Church) and 110 is Ladysmith.”
On Tuesday, the news arrived that all the people had been safely rescued from the interstate, and there only left abandoned cars which they also had removed afterward.
“I-95 is open after being closed for emergency response for most of the day. All disabled vehicles have been removed from the interstate”, VDOT Tweeted.
