A tractor-trailer rig jackknifed about 12:30 p.m. on northbound Interstate 805, north of Interstate 8, to avoid a woman’s Ford Mustang spinning out of control, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The truck driver veered into the guardrail and the mangled tractor separated from the trailer and overturned. The driver was injured, as were two female passengers in the Mustang, which also had hit the guardrail.
Three lanes were closed for the rest of the afternoon as hazardous materials and freeway crews cleaned up debris and a large fuel spill.
The crash also sent chunks of concrete, truck parts, glass, and guardrail flying off the overpass. Some landed in the crowded parking lot below at Dave and Buster’s restaurant in Mission Valley.
Bret Vedder was parked in the lot, reading a newspaper.
“I heard a noise and then stuff started raining down on my car and all around me,” Vedder said. He got out of his SUV, which was dented by the debris, looked up, and saw one door of the big-rig dangling from the overpass.
Kip Wiedman, driving his pickup on Camino del Rio North, said he saw something flying through the air and he slammed on his brakes. A bit of mangled metal hit his hood just below the windshield.
“I had no idea what it was,” said Wiedman, who had been unaware of the crash above him on the freeway.
Between 8 a.m. and noon, when the rain was heavy, 95 accidents were reported on roads patrolled by the California Highway Patrol. A total of 159 crashes, many single-vehicle spinouts, were reported between midnight and 8 p.m.
The Carmel Mountain Road on-ramp to northbound Interstate 5 was shut down because of flooding, as it was during last week’s storm.
Snow fell on the Sunrise Highway, where chains were required on vehicle tires.
An Oceanside police patrol car was damaged when the officer drove across a 10-foot-deep sinkhole on southbound El Camino Real south of Mission Avenue in Oceanside.
The officer was sent to check on a 3-foot diameter hole in the road about 10:30 a.m. It was reported as being in the northbound lane, and in the heavy rain, the officer didn’t see until it was too late that the hole actually was in his southbound lane, Oceanside police Lt. Leonard Mata said.
Mata said the jolt badly damaged the patrol car wheels, but the officer wasn’t hurt. The lane was closed between Mission and Vista Rey while repairs were made.
In San Diego, public works crews cruised around looking for flooding in areas most at risk, including Mission Boulevard at Pacific Beach Drive in Pacific Beach, College and University avenues in Rolando and South 32nd Street at Chollas Creek in Barrio Logan.
In Mission Valley, at Fashion Valley Road, the San Diego River was flowing at a modest pace and was measured at 3.6 feet at 7 a.m. — well below the flood stage of 11.3 feet, said Bill Harris, the city storm water department’s spokesman. By 1 p.m., the river had risen to 4.3 feet.
Harris said during last week’s record rainfall, the San Diego River crested at 14.1 feet.
“Today we have sent crews on normal storm patrol, teams are fanning out across the city to areas that typically have problems,” Harris said.
He said hundreds of city workers from public works, traffic engineering, streets and storm water were on the streets through the day. They found some mud on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard east of Ruffin Road in Clairemont, and short-lived flooding in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach close to the ocean.
Qualcomm Stadium's east parking lot became a lake, but Harris said by afternoon the water had receded somewhat.
“We were lucky,” Harris said mid-afternoon. “There was some debris here, some mud there. No hillsides were drifting around.”
In the North County, lifeguards were keeping an eye on a bluff that collapsed beneath two homes along the 1500 block of Neptune Avenue. So far the hillside appears to be holding, although several small slides have beem reported along that stretch of the coastline, Encinitas Marine Safety Capt. Larry Giles said.
Provided By: signonsandiego.com
