David Drummond
Member
An interesting storm complex surprised many on the Texas South Plains today east of Lubbock, and then continued to create havoc by sending out an incredible outflow boundary that swept the South Plains with winds that sometimes exceeded 70 mph! As anyone that has ever been to West Texas when the wind blow already knows, high winds and dirt make a terrible combination.
While there were a variety of damage reports across the area, the big story was a multi-car, multi-accident event that happened along US 62/82 between Lubbock and Brownfield. As many as 5 separate accidents, possibly more (these were the details I could get from the scenes at the time) involving up to and maybe more than 20 vehicles happened from about 9 miles north of Brownfield to around the Lubbock County line along US 62/82. All accidents were caused by the blowing dust with visibilities to ZERO at times!
If the original accidents weren't bad enough, other cars came along, not being able to see, and drove into the existing accidents. In one instance, a flat bed wrecker that had been summoned to the scene of one multi-car accident was rear ended by an SUV killing the driver. Shortly after that, two motorcyles slammed into that very same accident.
It's unknown how many injuries there were at the time. I do know that ALL ambulance from Brownfield were called out, as well as ambulances from Hockley and Lubbock Counties. Fire departments and rescue units from 5 different departments responded to the calls, as well as Sheriff's departments from 3 counties and at least a dozen or more DPS units.
All the while the blowing dust continued. It was incredible, and very surreal. The video doesn't do it justice. It was like a scene out of Mad Max or something.
I have a video about 2 minutes long available for download here:
http://drylinemedia.com/video/062206_Lubbo...t_sandstorm.wmv
you may need to right click and save it. It's about 16.5 megs, high quality.
I ruined the camera I was shooting it with. I don't know if will be able to be cleaned or is finished. Took me 5 wet wipes just to get the dirt off my face and ears. The inside of my chase van is coated with dirt. I saw some deputies wearing gas masks! Some of the most horrid conditions you could imagine. And if that wasn't enough, thunderstorms moved in and put enough moisture down to cut out some of the blowing dust, but then the CG lightning cranked up and then there was another danger to the rescue workers.
About 20 miles of US 62/82 was shut down for several hours until the accidents could be cleared and blowing dust subsided!
You might recall a similar accident happened out here a couple of years ago due to blowing dust as well!
While there were a variety of damage reports across the area, the big story was a multi-car, multi-accident event that happened along US 62/82 between Lubbock and Brownfield. As many as 5 separate accidents, possibly more (these were the details I could get from the scenes at the time) involving up to and maybe more than 20 vehicles happened from about 9 miles north of Brownfield to around the Lubbock County line along US 62/82. All accidents were caused by the blowing dust with visibilities to ZERO at times!
If the original accidents weren't bad enough, other cars came along, not being able to see, and drove into the existing accidents. In one instance, a flat bed wrecker that had been summoned to the scene of one multi-car accident was rear ended by an SUV killing the driver. Shortly after that, two motorcyles slammed into that very same accident.
It's unknown how many injuries there were at the time. I do know that ALL ambulance from Brownfield were called out, as well as ambulances from Hockley and Lubbock Counties. Fire departments and rescue units from 5 different departments responded to the calls, as well as Sheriff's departments from 3 counties and at least a dozen or more DPS units.
All the while the blowing dust continued. It was incredible, and very surreal. The video doesn't do it justice. It was like a scene out of Mad Max or something.
I have a video about 2 minutes long available for download here:
http://drylinemedia.com/video/062206_Lubbo...t_sandstorm.wmv
you may need to right click and save it. It's about 16.5 megs, high quality.
I ruined the camera I was shooting it with. I don't know if will be able to be cleaned or is finished. Took me 5 wet wipes just to get the dirt off my face and ears. The inside of my chase van is coated with dirt. I saw some deputies wearing gas masks! Some of the most horrid conditions you could imagine. And if that wasn't enough, thunderstorms moved in and put enough moisture down to cut out some of the blowing dust, but then the CG lightning cranked up and then there was another danger to the rescue workers.
About 20 miles of US 62/82 was shut down for several hours until the accidents could be cleared and blowing dust subsided!
You might recall a similar accident happened out here a couple of years ago due to blowing dust as well!
