Hundreds of motorists were trapped all night in the snow and freezing temperatures along a 50 mile stretch of I-95, the East Coast’s main north-south highway, after a major crash involving six tractor trailers in Virginia.
According to the Virginia Department of Transportation (DOT), both directions of traffic were at a complete standstill on January 3rd between Ruther Glen in Caroline County and exit 152 in Dumfries, Prince William County.
At around daybreak on January 4th, the Virginia DOT tweeted that “crews will start taking people off at any available interchange to get them.”
According to reporting from Biz Pac Review, Virginia’s Democrat Governor Ralph Northam refused to take questions about the serious situation and “was AWOL concerning the trapped drivers.”
Finally, on the morning of January 4th, the governor sent out a tweet about the progress of the rescue, writing: “An emergency message is going to all stranded drivers connecting them to support, and the state is working with localities to open warming shelters as needed. While sunlight is expected to help @VaDOT clear the road, all Virginians should continue to avoid 1-95.”
An emergency message is going to all stranded drivers connecting them to support, and the state is working with localities to open warming shelters as needed.
While sunlight is expected to help @VaDOT clear the road, all Virginians should continue to avoid 1-95.
— Governor Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) January 4, 2022
The crews labored to remove stopped trucks, plow snow, de-ice the roadway, and to guide the stranded motorists toward the nearest exits. By 9 a.m. on the morning of January 4th, nearly 24 hours after many of the cars had gotten stuck on the road, a single lane of traffic was slowly navigating between the obstacles of stalled vehicles in one direction, while some people could be seen walking down the highway that was still blanketed with ice and snow.
“We know many travelers have been stuck on Interstate 95 in our region for extraordinary periods of time over the past 24 hours, in some cases since Monday morning,” said Marcie Parker, the Virginia DOT’s Fredericksburg District engineer. “This is unprecedented, and we continue to steadily move stopped trucks to make progress toward restoring lanes. In addition to clearing the trucks, we are treating for snow and several inches of ice that has accumulated around them to ensure that when the lanes reopen, motorists can safely proceed to their destination.”
The collision of six tractor trailers on Monday afternoon had caused no serious injuries, but it had stopped traffic, and the snow storm had made cleaning up the accident impossible. According to the National Weather Service, the January 3rd blizzard brought approximately 7 to 11 inches of snow to the area.
As hours passed and night eventually came, hundreds of motorists began posting increasingly desperate messages to social media about running out of fuel, food, and water.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Emily Clementson, a truck driver, said in a statement to NBC Washington. She urged the stranded motorists to ask truck drivers for spare food or water, as many of them carry extra supplies in case they get stranded.
Democrat Senator Tim Kaine, who lives in Richmond, shared via tweet on January 4th that he was among those stranded.
“I started my normal 2 hour drive to DC at 1pm yesterday. 19 hours later, I’m still not near the Capitol,” he tweeted, sharing a photo showing how his car had been boxed in between three tractor-trailers.
I started my normal 2 hour drive to DC at 1pm yesterday. 19 hours later, I’m still not near the Capitol. My office is in touch with @VaDOT to see how we can help other Virginians in this situation. Please stay safe everyone. pic.twitter.com/Sz1b1hZJZ5
— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) January 4, 2022
Another stranded motorist was NBC News correspondent Josh Lederman, who ended up speaking on NBC’s “Today” show in the early hours of January 4th via video feed from his car, with his dog in the back seat. Lederman informed viewers that he had been stuck about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C., since 8 p.m. on January 3rd.
“I don’t have any food or water. I have gas, but how long is that going to last?” said Lederman, a former White House reporter for The Associated Press.
WATCH:
.@JoshNBCNews joins us from his car on I-95, where he has been stuck overnight with his dog as a result of the winter weather. pic.twitter.com/s2nN4uaqp6
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) January 4, 2022
“We started to see a lot of drivers turning their cars off to conserve gas, people running out of food and water, kids and pets holed up for so many hours, people letting their pets out of the car to try to walk them on the street. And in the meantime, no signs of any emergency vehicles that we could see,” Lederman said. “You really start to think if there was a medical emergency, someone that was out of gas and out of heat — you know it’s 26 degrees and there’s no way that anybody can get to you in this situation.”
Response
Many people took to Twitter to call out the governor for his poor response to the situation. Except there was one small problem… Many of them were calling out the wrong person.
“Does Virginia’s new Governor Youngkin know people have been stranded on I-95 for 15 hours? With no help in sight?” one Twitter user asked.
In response, The Hill’s political columnist Joe Concha wrote: “In a related story, Ralph Northam (D) is still Governor of Virginia.”
In a related story, Ralph Northam (D) is still Governor of Virginia. https://t.co/ZtC4vDjLuH
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) January 4, 2022
This continued for several hours as Twitter allowed Youngkin’s name to trend on the platform, with leftists gleefully accusing him of shirking his duties as governor despite the fact that he won’t take office until January 15th. Upon being corrected, many deleted their tweets, while some just stopped posting. Almost none of them changed their tune to call out Governor Northam, obviously because he’s a member of their own party.
