3 Die as 75 M.P.H. Santa Ana Winds Bowl Over Trucks

Two Florida men were killed Tuesday when 75 m.p.h. Santa Ana winds overturned their tractor-trailer truck on Interstate 8, 40 miles east of San Diego.

Another driver was killed in Riverside County when the wind slammed his twin-trailer truck into a guard rail on Interstate 15 east of Ontario.

The California Highway Patrol reported that six other vehicles were also bowled over by high winds roaring out of the desert in Southern California.

The two truckers killed on I-8 were identified by a CHP spokesman as Walter R. Graham, 55, and Marion U. Follett, 43. Their home addresses in Florida were unknown.

The driver killed in Riverside County was identified, pending notification of next of kin, only as a 37-year-old resident of Orme, Utah.

CHP spokesman David Marriott said a witness saw the truck on I-8 “bucking up and down” as it headed east, about 40 miles from San Diego near Buckman Springs, before it was lifted off the highway and flipped over a guard rail.

Graham was killed instantly and Follett died in an ambulance rushing him to a Life Flight helicopter in Alpine, the CHP spokesman said.

After the 10:10 a.m. accident, the CHP closed a 35-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Alpine and Jacumba.

It was reopened at 2:40 p.m. when the wind died down, the spokesman said.

High winds also caused a half-hour power outage in Descanso affecting 300 residents, a San Diego Gas & Electric spokesman said.

Pacific Bell officials also reported scattered service interruptions due to the wind.

A small-craft warning from Point Conception to the Mexican border was posted by the Coast Guard and a wind shear warning for unstable winds aloft was issued by aviation authorities in San Diego.

The National Weather Services said that wind measurements from weather balloons released at Montgomery Field Tuesday morning showed that wind speeds increased from 12 knots at 6,000 feet to 41 knots at 9,000 feet. “That is wind shear, a tremendous difference in wind speed,” forecaster Wilbur Shigehara said.

National Weather Service forecasters predicted diminishing winds today and Thursday, but said skies are expected to remain sunny and temperatures warm, in the mid-70s in San Diego.

In the Riverside area, the winds caused havoc along a six-mile stretch of the Pomona Freeway between Milliken Avenue and Pedley Street.

Two large trucks, two smaller trucks, a mobile home and a delivery van were overturned during the morning, CHP officer John Anderson said.

Use of the six-mile section of the freeway was limited to loaded trucks and passenger vehicles for three hours, Anderson said.

High winds create a “sailing effect” on the sides of big tractor-trailers and other slab-sided vehicles, forcing them out of control, Anderson said.

There were no reports of wind-related accidents in Los Angeles County, where the Santa Ana winds were only about 20 m.p.h.