Navigating During a Dust Storm Oftentimes Puts Motorists in a Fog : Hazards: Even drivers who are used to low visibility don’t know the dangers of wind-whipped dirt clouds.

This time of year it’s usually the tule fog, blindingly thick and snapping cold, that disrupts highway travelers and sometimes leads to ferocious pileups and death in the Central Valley.

But on occasion, as happened on Friday, a wind-blasted storm of dust rises from the farms and ancient lake beds to reap a grim bounty on the arrow-straight highways that pierce the cotton and alfalfa fields.

Locals have learned to respect the treachery of the tule fogs, which can sit stubbornly on the valley floor for days. Most smart drivers stay home, or if they must brave the fog, slow down and ride their brakes.

When the dust clouds kick up, however, only the most foolhardy or unaware try to reach their destination. Dust storms are all the more dangerous because they don’t strike as often as tule fog, leaving people unprepared.

“The dust will cut your visibility to absolute zero,” Art Turl said Saturday, taking a break from cleaning out the dirt that had whipped into his Arco station and mini-market in Kettleman City the day before. “It will come faster. In 30 seconds, that dust can be on you.”

The dust storm that blew across Interstate 5 on Friday left 17 dead and nearly 100 cars mangled. It was the worst dust episode since the interstate was built across the dry west side of the valley.

In 1975, blowing dust caused a series of 50 crashes in the valley. In 1977, 25 million tons of soil and dust were stirred up near Bakersfield, a federal study found. Spores that cause “valley fever,” a lung disease, escaped from the soil and were swept into the air. People as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area were stricken.

In 1980, 12 cars collided on I-5 near Bakersfield in a dust storm and two people died. Last year, one man died in a 20-car pile up on California 99 south of Tulare during a dust storm.

But even locals were shocked by the enormity and intensity of Friday’s maelstrom of sand and soil. Carolyn Ferguson, manager of the Best Western in Kettleman City, woke up Saturday to find that she was barely able to speak. “This storm gave me laryngitis,” she said in a whisper.

Never in her 30 years living in the valley had she witnessed a storm so bad, with winds hitting 70 m.p.h., she said. “It takes the sun away,” Ferguson said. “You can’t even see the sky.”

From time to time, dust storms also hit the east side of the valley, the more-populated side served by California 99. But they’re less frequent there. The land to the east is planted in grape vines, orchards and other perennial crops that tend to hold down the dust.

On the less fertile west side, the fields are planted mostly in row crops like cotton and cantaloupe. Once these annual crops are harvested and the fields are plowed, there’s little foliage left to slow the wind and keep the dust down.

Travelers between the Bay Area and Los Angeles can be lulled into thinking they are secure as they speed over 225 miles of natural desert. As near as they can tell, Interstate 5 is tailor-made for turning up the stereo, setting the cruise control, and keeping an eye peeled for the Highway Patrol.

On this super-freeway, one can travel from Mexico to Canada without hitting a stoplight. On Oct. 12, 1979, after the final 70-foot section of concrete was poured south of Sacramento, politicians unhooked a golden chain, let the first cars pass, and hailed the freeway as Camino de Unidad, the Highway of Unity.

But once in a while, a massive pileup reminds motorists of what Oildale native and author Gerald W. Haslam notes about the Central Valley in his latest book, “The Other California”: “Despite the dominance of agriculture, an unresolved conflict with nature limns human illusion in the vast trough, for this place is no more fully tamed than is our own deepest being.”

The drought hasn’t helped matters. Many farmers, making do with less water, have let fields remain fallow. That leaves more exposed dirt to be kicked up by the winds that gust across the valley in late fall and winter.

“It’s not any individual’s fault,” Haslam, an English professor and writer-in-residence at Sonoma State University, said of the dust storms in an interview. “It’s habit. We act like we control nature.”

Haslam recalled that when he was a youngster in Oildale, dust would pepper his eyes and the sun would fade to a dim orange glow. The dust would mix with tears to form mud. If he was in a field, he would have a hard time finding his way back to the pickup.

The folklore around dust storms runs deep, Haslam said. There is the story, told in many variations, of the man who lay down after a night of drinking with his bedroom window open. The next day, he was found suffocated under a thick layer of dust.

As happens with other storms, the air afterward is cleansed. So it was for a time on Saturday morning. In Kettleman City, south of the crash site, there was only a slight breeze, Turl said at his gas station, and coastal mountains once again could be seen from I-5.

Phone Numbers for Relatives

Two telephone hotlines have been established to provide information about immediate family members involved in the Coalinga crash: * Fresno bureau of the state Office of Emergency Services: (209) 488-1941

* Fresno office of the American Red Cross: (209) 486-0701