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St. Joseph County-Today lake effect snow caused whiteout conditions that
resulted in numerous crashes on the Indiana Toll Road, all in the same area.
On December 12, 2017, around 11:30 a.m., Indiana State Police dispatch
received a call of a jack-knifed semi that was blocking traffic on the Indiana
Toll Road near the 86 mile marker westbound.
This is located three miles east of the Mishawaka exit. This quickly resulted in numerous crashes as
other vehicles attempted to stop and avoid crashing into each other.
Shortly after these chain-event crashes there was also a crash at the same
mile marker eastbound that completely blocked eastbound traffic.
These crashes caused all westbound traffic to be blocked. Troopers had a difficult time getting to the
crashes and had to go on foot to get to all of the crashes and assist all the
people involved. In total, these pileups
resulted in seven crashes involving eight semi-tractor trailers and five
passenger cars. All these crashes
happened within a mile of each other. No
serious injuries were reported in these crashes.
During the investigation and clean-up of these crashes, westbound traffic
was diverted off of the Toll Road at exit 96.
This is the CR17 exit. Eastbound traffic
was diverted off at exit 77. This is the
exit for SR933. The westbound lanes reopened to traffic at 3:00 p.m. and the
eastbound lanes reopened at 1:15 p.m. Traffic
backed up for miles due to these crashes.
Lake effect snow is snow that comes off of Lake Michigan in numerous
bands. This creates extremely heavy snow
with little to no visibility in a small area.
The snow in these bands is typically intense and cause the road to
quickly become snow covered and dangerous.
The weather outside these snow bands is typically clear and sunny.
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