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Subscribe to RSSThe low visibility produced by the storm triggered a multi-car wreck. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
A dust storm swirling reddish-brown clouds over northern Oklahoma triggered multiple crashes involving about three dozen vehicles on Thursday, forcing police to shut down part of the heavily traveled Interstate 35 for several hours amid near blackout conditions.
More than a dozen people were injured as winds up to 55 mph whipped up the soil off farmlands near Blackwell, NBC station KFOR-TV reported.
In a scene reminiscent of the Dust Bowl days, choking dust shrouded Interstate 35, which links Dallas and Oklahoma City to Kansas City, Mo.
Dozens of vehicles were stopped dead in their tracks in the median and on the shoulders.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Jodi Palmer, a dispatcher with the Kay County Sheriff's Office. "In this area alone, the dirt is blowing because we've been in a drought. I think from the drought everything's so dry and the wind is high."
The highway was closed between U.S. 60 and Oklahoma 11, an eight-mile stretch of the cross-country roadway.
"We have very high winds and blowing dust causing a near blackout condition," Capt. James West of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Thursday afternoon. He said visibility was less than 10 feet.
The stretch of closed roadway reopened Thursday evening after crews cleaned up debris and waited for winds to die down.
The area has suffered through an extended drought and many farmers had recently loosened the soil while preparing for the winter wheat season.
"You have the perfect combination of extended drought in that area ... and we have the extremely strong winds," said Gary McManus, the Oklahoma associate state climatologist.
Rolf Clements / The Ponca City News via AP
These cars were among the nearly three dozen involved in dust storm crashes Thursday near Blackwell, Okla.
"Also, the timing is bad because a lot of those farm fields are bare. The soil is so dry, it's like powder. Basically what you have is a whole bunch of topsoil waiting for the wind to blow it away. It's no different from the 1930s than it is now."
Steve Austin, a Kay County commissioner, said visibility was terrible even in the nearby town of Ponca City.
"It looked like a huge fog," he said. "We've had dust storms before, but I don't remember anything of this magnitude in years."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Rolf Clements / The Ponca City News via AP
Rescuers work to remove a woman pinned in a vehicle involved in the Interstate 35 crashes Thursday near Blackwell, Okla.
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Leave a Comment:
Very sad and tragic. I have been in driving rain or snow storms and had to pull over cuz i could not see, and still i see peeps flying by and disappearing in the snow, rain or dust. and thinking, freakn idiots.
I drove through one of these in Arizona, definitely a white knuckle ride. Extremely easy for someone to unknowingly cause a bad chain reaction....even if they are driving carefully.
Some people have more important things to do in life than worry about extremely hazardous natural weather.
good grief....whats next a plague? ...........Ok certainly isn't.
It probably started with someone trying to text while driving to say they were in a dust bowl...idiots!
Vote to Toke!!!
"Wow! I've never seen so much dust! It's like driving in a cave with no headlights. I can't believe people are still driving 60 miles per hour! What dumb sh"
The text that started the Big Bang.
Tulsa looked like Los Angeles. Was a very strange day.
now now, no sense disparaging Tulsa like that...................
Our skys are blue.
Never date a Tulsa woman. You know what a Tulsa woman is spelled backwards.
Eddie Owens,L.A. does not get dust storms.The smog is crummy but it has cleared up quite a bit in the last decade.I will still take California over Oklahoma any day of the week due to their unstable weather patterns.
Oooooooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the Plains....
News flash...BOZOhussen, the chosen one---states that it was caused by a youtube video, then has over-the-HIll'y take the blame!!!
News flash-cons are idiots!
shoot warren beat me to it....must be gettin slow.........
I'm growing older but ain't growing up! There is nothing in that line about "slow" LOL.
Besides Warren is a Texan and they are always fast on the draw -Just don't shoot, warren!
12:55 pm AST
Almost Good Afternoon Scooter!
the pics look post-apocolyptic. i have seen pile ups from wild fires in Florida and fog in the Smoky Mountains, this looks worse than all of those, with the exception that i don't see any fires in these pics.
People People...
Phoenix has had a DOZEN or more of these dust-storms (technically called Haboob's) this year alone !
The Oakies are just getting a taste of next year..... look for Phoenix to get twice as many as this year &
Oklahoma is going to be right behind it .
We are in "the cycle" once again like we were in the 1930's & it is going to take several more years before it clears out .
Get ready to shovel sand !
We were "in the cycle" in the 50's too. Almost ran out of water then so OK City got serious about assuring plenty for the future.
The drought has been severe in Kay County and to points west. The forcast is for another exceptionally dry winter, so, expect more of this. I was out that way, just a few weeks ago, and I have never seen it so bad. Even the area around Stillwater does not look good. SW Kansas, the further west one goes, is beyond belief. Lubbock, TX area looks like the Dust Bowl is happening now! Imagine how much worse this will look when, if predictions are true, all of this turns to desert.
Just was coming home to Denver Wednesday and ran into a dust cloud
in the panhandle of Texas. Luckily there were only myself and one other
car on 287 at that time. The dust cloud was about fifty yards wide.
I drove though that yesterday on I-35 right at Blackwell. the vis was bad but what made it worse was cars stopping on the road and on the shoulder. just continue to drive slowly and avoid causing a collison by stopping.
Collisions are not generally caused by stopped vehicles. Of course, there's always the guy who "slams on his brakes", but even then the following vehicle will be ticketed for following too close - or failure to control speed. That makes it simple for the government to get their "pound of flesh" from the citizen's misfortune.
Great, now another exodus od OKIES to California! Grapes of Wrath all over again.
Don't worry, we're going North, this time.
I-35 doesn't go to CA - it takes you to points north or south. Most Okies have enough sense not to look for a better place in CA, besides, all the good jobs there are already taken up by "undocumented" aliens.
Who probably have a better work ethic than you do.
But please... continue b!tching, it's charming.
Hilarious.
All along I-35 are signs "Do Not Drive Into Smoke." Do drivers not understand the reason behind that? What is so important that speed must be retained even if visibility is ten feet?
So sad to see history repeated.
I believe that, in the original legislation, the signs were meant to prevent cars from driving into smoke from grass and/or forest fires. That being said, dust, at least these days, fully qualifies.
When I first drove to California years ago I saw a sign in Oklahoma saying "Do not drive into smoke". I was wondering what that was about. I guess this explains it. The only other thing I can remember about the drive to California was while driving down the freeway at 70 mph I saw a spider run across the road I think in New Mexico, a tarantula I suppose. I figured out that's where these big spider science fiction movies were all about. That is the only spider I've ever seen run across a highway I was driving on.
Slow down people! It's like driving in fog at night. It's a lot easier to stop when your going 45 compared to 65. Only problem is the dumb asses rear ending your car because their not smart enough to slow down too.
Just you wait until it gets in yore house and everthing is cuvvered with dust i know my spelin aint the best in the werld but shoot i at least make sense not like some of yew iddiets who don't know a bean pole from a flag pole.
People try to put us d-down
(Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around
(Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold(Talkin' 'bout my generation)I hope I die before I get old(Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Right O-Bro?
Could be another dust bowl of the 1930's, the dirty thirties it was called. The weather is something that people need to pay attention too. Global weather is changing, for the worse, but the sad thing is, there is nothing we can do to stop it, we have done too much damage to this planet. So carry on about your lives untill it hits you in the face.
In the 1930s dust from the Dust Bowl blew all the way to New York.
Anyone who tries to blame this 2012 dust storm on man made climate change first needs to explain how it happened in the 1930s before CO2 levels increased and before there were SUV's.
All we need to accompany the latest Depression is the latest Dust Bowl!