Interstate 80 closed until Monday; Multi-vehicle crashes, winter storms to blame

[ad_1]

***For all things Wyoming, sign up for our daily newsletter***

By Jimmy Orr, Cowboy State Daily

Interstate 80 between Rawlins and Laramie is a mess and won’t be opening anytime soon.

In fact, almost all of I-80 is closed and won’t be open until late Monday morning at the earliest. The Wyoming Department of Transportation estimates the Interstate could be open no earlier than 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Monday.

After twin multiple-vehicle collisions Saturday near the Wagonhound exit that left one person dead and an undetermined number injured, cleanup crews continue to tow tractor-trailers and remove debris from the highway Sunday morning.

awful weather

Efforts are hampered by poor weather conditions. A winter storm warning remains in effect for the area until 11 a.m. Monday.

The high temperature in Elk Mountain, Wyoming, the closest community where the two crashes happened, is expected to reach -1 degree on Sunday.

Additional snow accumulation in the region is expected between four and seven inches.

The identity of the person killed on Saturday has not been released and no information has been released on the condition of the injured.

Hundreds of tractor-trailers are backed up and waiting in communities all along Interstate 80.

The lack of information

Many people took to social media to express their frustration with parts of the Wyoming Department of Transportation website not being accessible.

Many users trying to access WYDOT road conditions were greeted with the error message “Service temporarily unavailable. The server is currently unable to process the request due to a temporary overload or server maintenance.”

However, other parts of the site were accessible. The webcams section seemed to work with only a few offline cameras.

A section showing all road closures also ran on Sunday morning.

The Saturday Crash

The Wyoming Highway Patrol said two crashes occurred Saturday afternoon around 1:30 p.m. The first at mile marker 261 westbound and the second at mile marker 266 westbound.

A total of 44 vehicles were involved in the accidents.

According to the Carbon County Public Safety Dispatch, three fuel spills were reported and have been cleaned up.

***For all things Wyoming, sign up for our daily newsletter***

[ad_2]