Snow-Related Closure of Interstate 5 Wreaks Havoc for Truckers

Confronted with a record long snow-related shutdown of Interstate 5--the state’s major north-south highway--trucking companies tore up their delivery schedules Thursday and sent their over-worked drivers along the much slower coastal route.

Despite the hundreds of trucks immobilized by foul weather on either side of the Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountains north of Los Angeles, however, food stores in the lower San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles area have yet to report shortages of fresh produce and meat.

“The biggest effects will not be felt by the customers (at this point), but by the folks behind the scenes,” Los Angeles food broker Peter Beesmyer said. “The biggest effect would be on fresh produce. But little of that comes in over the Grapevine this time of year.”

During the winter months, most fresh fruits and vegetables arrive from Mexico or South America, rather than from the farm valleys to the north. Still, the shipment of everything from sneakers to computers was hampered by the two-day shutdown of snow-clogged Interstate 5 over the Grapevine.

“It’s pretty disastrous,” said Charles Davidson, terminal manager in the Fontana office of one of the nation’s biggest trucking firms, PIE Nationwide.

Normally the company would be sending about 40 trucks a day from Los Angeles north on the interstate. Instead, the company was stockpiling cargo that can be frozen in Los Angeles and sending other freight up the coast route, U.S. 101.

“That’s a nice scenic route, but it’s not the way we like to go,” Davidson said, noting that the Interstate 5 shutdown and other highway closures Wednesday had thrown his California deliveries two days behind schedule.

From where it enters California at the Oregon border to where it exits the United States at the Mexican border, Interstate 5 stretches 1,380 miles. But the vulnerability to snow is usually greatest from Red Bluff north.

Closures over the Grapevine are normally dealt with in hours, not days. But by late Thursday, the mountainous section of the interstate--between Lake Hughes Road near Castaic on the south and Laval Road near Lebec on the north--had been shut for 48 hours, breaking the previous closure record of 32 hours set three years ago, a Caltrans spokesman said.

Officials said the route was not expected to reopen until sometime this morning.

It normally takes trucker Chris Thornburg of Fullerton four days to travel the coast from Washington to Los Angeles. But Thursday, his seventh day out, he and his flatbed rig were stuck at a Frazier Park truck stop at the foot of the mountains. He needed a tow truck to dislodge his rig from the 4-foot snow banks in the parking lot.

Local motels were full, so he had spent the night in his cab stretched across the seat and a small ice chest.

Because his drivers can legally only stay on the road 10 hours at a time, Davidson said his company had to send drivers down from Sacramento to meet those traveling north on U.S. 101 to finish the haul to northern distribution points.

Around San Luis Obispo, the traffic on the coast route was “heavy, heavy,” said Elsie Howell, a clerk in the local California Highway Patrol office. “Not to cast aspersions on your fair city, but it’s like Los Angeles.”

CHP Officer Donald Newman said the highway was getting three to four times the normal traffic, and truck traffic had increased by even more.

While the weather had delayed some food shipments, Jan DeLyser of the Fresh Produce Council in Los Angeles said, “We’re not seeing an immediate effect on pricing so far, because the food ads are set in advance.”

A Greyhound spokesman said its Las Vegas-Los Angeles bus service was back to normal on Thursday, but 32 departures over the Grapevine have been affected so far by the continuing closure of Interstate 5. Greyhound continued north-south service along U.S. 101.

The company was forced to cancel some trips and consolidate others that usually move over the Grapevine by going west around the closed stretch, said spokesman George Gravely at Greyhound headquarters in Dallas.