Six people were killed and at least 65 others were injured Thursday morning after a massive crash on an icy Texas interstate involving at least 133 vehicles, according to multiple reports.
A tangle of semitrailers, cars and trucks crashed into each other, with some vehicles on top of others.
“The vehicles are just mangled,” said Matt Zavadsky, spokesman for MedStar, which provides the ambulance service for the area. “Multiple tow trucks are on scene. It’s going to take a lot to disentangle this wreck.”
Police set up a reunification center for family members at a community center.
“The roadway was so treacherous from the ice that several of the first responders were falling on the scene,” Zavadsky said, adding his crews carry a sand-and-salt mixture in the ambulances, which they began using at the scene. At one point, he said, one of the ambulances was hit, but it sustained only minor damage and the crew members were fine.
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Farther south, in Austin, more than two dozen vehicles were involved in a pileup on an icy road, and one person was injured, emergency officials said.
According to the National Weather Service, residents from central Texas to the Ohio Valley woke up Thursday morning to a mixture of sleet and freezing rain. More freezing rain is also possible across central Texas, and some ice amounts over a tenth of an inch are forecast.
Ice storm warnings are in effect from Arkansas to Kentucky, while another winter storm was predicted to bring snow to the Mid-Atlantic states, the service said.
More than 125,000 homes and businesses were without electricity Thursday morning, largely in Kentucky and West Virginia, according to the website poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
Meanwhile, officials in central Kentucky were urging people to stay home due to icy conditions from a winter storm that downed tree limbs and power lines. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said state offices would be closed due to the weather.
Crews were responding to numerous calls of downed icy tree limbs and power lines, Lexington police said in a tweet that urged people not to travel “unless absolutely necessary.”
This story is developing.
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