Tuesday morning will certainly go down as one of the rush hours to remember for 2018. While most Atlanta commuters experienced their normal, ugly rides, crashes shut down two interstates for hours. When interstates are completely blocked for more than a few minutes, we on the WSB Traffic Team call them “RED ALERTS” — our equivalent of tornado warnings. And we know those stuck on I-20 and on I-85 were seeing red.
A fiery, scattered wreck shut down I-20/eastbound right before the Downtown Connector at 4 a.m. When WSB Traffic anchor Smilin’ Mark McKay started getting more information about it, he quickly realized it would not open anytime soon.
“Our colleague Steve Winslow in the WSB 24-hr Traffic Center was picking up Atlanta Police Department scanner chatter of at least one fatality even before it was officially confirmed by APD hours later,” McKay recalled after spending the morning hovering over the scene in the WSB Skycopter. He said that there were far more first responders on the scene than he is used to seeing.
“Mangled vehicles and debris stretched across all travel lanes of I-20/eastbound before the Downtown Connector. One vehicle was unrecognizable — that’s how violent this crash was.” In the end, police found more than the six injured and the one person killed. “Complicating matters was the fact that APD discovered a bag of marijuana and at least two handguns amid the wreckage. Couple that with the fatality crash investigation and it’s no wonder why the interstate stayed closed for nearly five hours.”
Lanes started opening, but I-20 was backed up to I-285 — about six miles. This then created big jams on I-285 both ways trying to get to I-20 and ramping to the two biggest alternates: Hollowell Parkway and MLK Jr. Dr. APD also had to shut down the MLK on ramp to I-20, as stuck motorists were trying to use it to exit the freeway, which is very dangerous.
Simultaneously, I-85/northbound through Gwinnett, Barrow and Jackson counties was miserable for a 15-mile stretch. Around midnight, a tractor trailer flipped over and shut I-85/northbound down just south of Highway 53 in Braselton. The ensuing jam caught WSB Radio news anchor Jennifer Griffies after she got off of work.
“I have never experienced anything like it and hope I never do again. I got just a taste of what people went through in Snowmageddon. I can’t even imagine!” Griffies said, adding that the police had no system in place to try and take cars off of the freeway behind the wreck. She got home at 5:15 a.m. Her shift ended at 11 p.m.
The initial wreck cleared as Griffies arrived home, but the backups spurred two or three other wrecks north of the next exit back, Highway 211, meaning the delays got even worse. At one point, the delays started at the Mall of Georgia/Hwy. 20 - 14 miles. Crews couldn’t fully open the freeway, which is only two lanes wide, until after 8 a.m.
Griffies’ experience is a reminder of two things. First, listening to News 95.5/AM750 WSB for traffic reports anytime you drive is mandatory. Griffies actually had left her radio off, because of a headache. She wished she had done what she normally does and listened.
Also, any time you drive in Atlanta, you need to have downloaded our Triple Team Traffic Alerts App and open it up to run in the background. Doing so triggers audio reports that we record for big problems on your route. Doing that would have saved Griffies from sitting in a six-hour backup and would have also kept many from sitting still on I-20 Tuesday morning.
Another take away from these awful wrecks is the importance for police and HERO units to coordinate funneling out the stuck traffic. Both cases saw people just stuck in their cars with nowhere to go for hours. Every county and city should have a plan for longterm interstate closures to methodically usher traffic back up the previous exit and then shut off the on-ramps from the exits behind the closure, to prevent people from driving into the delays.The most successful RED ALERTS are the ones with coordinated traffic diversions. Both problems Tuesday morning seemingly lacked that planning. With more planning, both drivers and the first responders can lessen problems.
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