Edition: U.S. / Global

Scenes of Disaster in Pileup That Killed 17 in California

Published: December 1, 1991

Scores of cars and trucks still lay in burned and tangled heaps on California's main north-south highway this afternoon, a day after colliding in a blinding dust storm. The authorities said 17 people had been killed and as many as 150 injured in one of the worst chain-reaction accidents in the nation's history.

Occasional gusts of white dust continued to swirl across the highway here, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, as tow trucks triedto untangle the 93 cars and 11 tractor-trailer trucks. Some were blackened and melted, with small pools of chrome on the roadway beside them. Some had apparently exploded, with parts of vehicles lying here and there.

Most of the dead apparently were killed inside their cars. Only two bodies were found on the ground. Scattered around them lay the belongings of passengers in the wrecked cars: a can of hairspray, a pair of jeans, a radio, a small child's shoe, a bottle of dishwashing liquid and a teddy bear.

The California Highway Patrol closed a 100-mile stretch of Interstate 5 around the accident site, which is north of the farming city of Coalinga, on Friday. By late afternoon, all but a 12-mile section had been reopened, and virtually all the vehicles had been cleared. 'A Disaster Scene'

"From one end to the other it was a disaster scene," said Jerry Scharton, an engineer with the Mid-Valley Fire Department, which took part in the rescue. "It reminded me of the desert operation we just had over there in the Gulf.

"There were cars that caught fire and some off the road upside down," he said. "Some were five abreast that looked like they had run into a brick wall. Trucks were jackknifed on both sides of the road."

The worst previous accident of this nature came last Dec. 11 near Chattanooga, Tenn., when 13 people were killed in an 83-vehicle pileup on Interstate 75 in heavy fog. The California Highway Patrol said the worst highway accident in this state occurred in 1976, when 29 schoolchildren were killed after their bus plunged off a freeway exit in the town of Martinez.

Lieut. Gov. Leo McCarthy visited the scene, about 160 miles southeast of San Francisco, and attributed the accident to the dry conditions caused by a five-year drought. Santa Ana winds continued to whip through Southern California today, sweeping walls of thick dust across parched farmland.

"I think we have to understand that the drought and acts of nature that extended over so many years were a part of the tragedy," Mr. McCarthy said.

The accident occurred in a rich agricultural area of Central California. But the drought has caused much of the land to turn to dust, and many fields lie dry and uncultivated. No Rain for 9 Months

"We've had absolutely no rain for probably nine months now," said Capt. Bob Buckles of the Mid-Valley Fire Department. "We had an especially dry area over there." He added, "We have a lot of loose topsoil from the farmland because most of the crops have been harvested."

Today, the injured travelers, about 20 of them in critical condition, were being treated at six local hospitals, many of them after waiting hours in their mangled cars for help to arrive.

The pileup began shortly after lunch time Friday, when Thanksgiving weekend drivers on both sides of the highway drove into the blinding dust.

"It was three accidents, and then they all came together over a mile-and-a-half area," Mr. Scharton said.

Among the travelers was Roger Fasulkey, who was returning home to Lancaster, Calif., with his two young sons from a Thanksgiving visit with friends in San Francisco. Traveling at about 50 miles an hour, he suddenly could not see, became tangled in a moving pileup of six cars, and was struck twice from behind.

Amid the brown dust, filled with flying rocks and debris, he said, he sat blindly, facing the wrong way in the southbound lane. He was surrounded by the sound of crashing metal.

He finally managed to pull off the road, he said, and saw a man and woman climb from their cars only to be struck and killed by other vehicles that plowed into the pileup. "He was hit and his wife was engulfed in the wreckage," Mr. Fasulkey said. "I grabbed their daughter and pulled her to the side and we headed for a ditch. It was the only protection I could find."

Reached by telephone at a hotel near the scene, Mr. Fasulkey said he and other surviving travelers had helped to carry the injured to ambulances and helicopters.

Along the mile-long stretch of highway where most of the accidents occurred, some vehicles had been been smashed repeatedly and others had exploded into flame and burned to blackened hulks.

Amid the wreckage, the highway patrol said nine bodies had been found burned beyond recognition. Others were discovered as cars were pried apart by tow trucks.

"We had fire trucks out there, and folks couldn't see a foot past the windshield from the blowing dust," Captain Buckles said. "People were driving too fast for these conditions."

Travelers told of encountering the dust and the pileups too quickly to react.

When Mike Davis, a paramedic, arrived on the scene, he said he had to peer through the swirling dust to see the still-smoldering cars and trucks.

"Forty or 50 people came running up to the ambulance screaming," he said. "One woman was still smoldering. She was burned on half her body."

David Eppler, the owner of a towing company in the nearby town of Firebaugh, said that even after rescuers began to arrive, cars were still crashing and people were still being killed.

He said he saw a man park his pickup truck and go to help accident victims, leaving his two children in the cab. Moments later, another car came and impaled him against the trailer hitch on the back of his truck.

Drivers were astounded by how little time they had to react. One, Johnny John of San Jose, told The Associated Press, "By the time I saw brake lights, it was too late to stop."

Larry Burrow, who drove a motor home through the blinding storm, said, "We heard car after car, bang, bang, bang, bang."

Another driver, Peter Harvey of Oakland, said: "It was like ice. I couldn't turn the car and I couldn't stop the car."

Matt Davis, 15 years old, said: "I heard Dad yell, 'Hold on, hold on.' I saw the back of somebody's car. I felt us hit a couple of more times from the rear. I was just holding on to the seat."

A spokesman for the Highway Patrol said the storm arose too quickly for officials to take precautions or to close the highway.

"These people were surprised. We were surprised," said the spokesman, John Anderson. "With fog, you know it's coming up. With wind you don't know it's coming up."

Photos: Capt. Wayne Bender of the Fresno, Calif., Fire Department searching for victims after more than 100 vehicles crashed on Interstate 5 near Coalinga in a dust storm. At least 17 people were killed and about 150 were injured in the accident, which closed a 100-mile stretch of the highway (Associated Press); Kuchen Langworthy and Chris Gwin of Santa Rosa, Calif., comforting each other Friday night as emergency workers attended to victims of the series of crashes caused by a dust storm near Coalinga. (Associated Press) Map of California, indicating Coalinga.