Winds Turn Over Trucks, Claim 3 Lives

Santa Ana winds, gusting up to 100 m.p.h. in spots, bowled over at least eight trucks in the Southland on Tuesday, killing three people, the California Highway Patrol said.

Two Florida men died when their tractor-trailer rig, traveling east on Interstate 8 40 miles east of San Diego, was struck by a 75-m.p.h. wind blast, lifting the trailer off the pavement and flipping the rig over a guard rail.

Walter R. Graham, 55, was killed instantly. Marion U. Follett, 43,the driver, died en route to a hospital, officials said.

Interstate 8 was closed along a 35-mile stretch between Alpine and Jacumba for about 3 1/2 hours, the CHP said.

A 37-year-old truck driver from Orme, Utah, was killed instantly when a wind gust caught his twin-trailer rig at 4:30 a.m. and threw it into the guard rail of the interchange of Interstates 15 and 10 in Ontario, CHP Officer Weston Taylor said. The rig plunged nose first about 60 feet to the ground, crushing the driver, whose name was withheld until relatives could be notified.

Only a few minutes later, the wind caught a second big rig at the same spot, flopping it on its side and throwing one trailer over the side, where it dangled precariously over the wreckage of the first truck. The driver was unhurt, Taylor said.

Gusts of 60 m.p.h. were reported at Ontario International Airport and as high as 100 m.p.h. in Rialto.

CHP Officer John Anderson said the wind created a “sailing effect” on the sides of truck-trailer rigs and other slab-sided vehicles, throwing them out of control and sometimes overturning them.

The winds also caused havoc along a six-mile stretch of the Pomona Freeway between Milliken Avenue and Pedley Streets in Riverside County. Two big rigs, two smaller trucks, a mobile home and a delivery van were overturned by wind blasts, Anderson said. No serious injuries resulted.

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

Nearly 90,000 people from Ventura County to San Bernardino County were without power for varying periods during the day because of wind-related outages, utility officials said.

“This is a classic Santa Ana condition brought on by the presence of a high pressure system over the Western states,” National Weather Service forecaster Stan Massy said Tuesday.

The winds should decrease by this morning, he said.

Tuesday’s high at the Los Angeles Civic Center was 77 degrees. Forecasters said skies are expected to remain sunny and temperatures will continue warm, with highs from the mid-70s to the low 80s.