Morgan Hill
– An early-morning crash involving a truckload of cardboard
caused a massive backup on northbound U.S. Highway 101 and havoc on
Morgan Hill city street Friday.
Morgan Hill – An early-morning crash involving a truckload of cardboard caused a massive backup on northbound U.S. Highway 101 and havoc on Morgan Hill city street Friday.
Santos Guillen, 42, of Hayward, apparently lost control of his tractor trailer, near the new Bailey Avenue offramp at 4:17am, according to California Highway Patrol officers. The CHP reported that the truck veered into the center median, back to the outer rail then back to the median, coming to rest in the two left lanes where it burst into flames.
Guillen managed to escape and was not injured.
The Albertson’s/Save-On truck was soon fully engulfed, resulting in closure of the northbound freeway, said CHP spokeswoman Terry Mayes.
At 4:30am CHP officers began diverting traffic off the freeway and onto Monterey Road so burning debris could be cleared.
Twenty minutes later two, of four, lanes reopened. Mayes said she heard reports that as the morning commute heated up traffic was backed up about 10 miles – to the truck weigh stations south of San Martin Avenue.
“It was an ugly morning commute,” Mayes said.
City Treasurer Mike Roorda, who works for Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, said the accident added about an hour to his normal drive.
“I got on the road about 6:40am,” Roorda said. “At that point it started to slow past Cochrane and we crept all the way.”
Much of the delay came from having to deal with the fire, Mayes said.
Roorda reported seeing a backhoe pulling burning or smoldering cardboard out so firefighters could put it out.
“It was something to see,” he said.
The thousands of extra vehicles dumped onto Cochrane and Monterey roads caused traffic headaches for Morgan Hill Police.
By 7:30am, the department put every available officer on traffic control duty.
“We were all directing traffic up to Tilton,” said Lt. Joe Sampson, who is normally in charge of the detective division.
The CHP first said it expected to open all four lanes by noon but it took until nearly 2pm before motorists reported a smooth ride – just in time for the Friday afternoon crush, southbound this time.
