7 Killed, Dozens Hurt in Crashes on Wet Roads

Seven people were killed and dozens injured Sunday in a daylong series of crashes on rain-slick Los Angeles area freeways and streets, including a fiery chain-reaction pileup in Sun Valley that left 15 people hurt, authorities said.

Tow truck drivers made repeated runs and police traffic dispatchers worked hurriedly to cope with crashes and other mishaps as remnants of Hurricane Darby swept over the region, leaving streets coated with a slippery mixture of rain and oil.

The rainfall ranged from 0.05 of an inch at the Los Angeles Civic Center to at least .40 of an inch at Mt. Wilson. The wet weather was expected to continue today and Tuesday.

The California Highway Patrol said 15 people were injured, five critically, when 14 vehicles collided and some burst into flames on the rain-shrouded Golden State Freeway about half a mile south of Sunland Boulevard in Sun Valley early Sunday morning.

At least nine more people were injured in the Grapevine portion of the same freeway 12 hours later as a downpour sent cars, trucks and motor homes skidding down the steep northbound grade.

Two people were killed in a car-truck collision on the Pomona Freeway in Diamond Bar; one was killed on the San Bernardino Freeway just east of Pomona in a chain-reaction collision; another was killed in a truck-car collision on the Pomona Freeway near Hacienda Heights, and three people died in single-vehicle accidents elsewhere.

“It’s been a hell of a day,” said Caltrans traffic engineer Robert Varady. “It’s the same old story: People don’t know how to drive in the rain here.

“I’ve seen injury accident after injury accident after injury accident. There are cars everywhere, over the side, people injured, people dead.”

In the Sun Valley pileup, a car careening off the center divider touched off a chain reaction involving 14 cars amid heavy rain about 1:50 a.m., the CHP said. Nine cars were destroyed, three by fire.

“They were triaging people on the freeway . . . like a big bus crash or something,” said CHP Officer Elaine McCoy of the incident, which closed southbound lanes for 2 1/2 hours. “It was pretty ugly.”

Authorities said the auto that hit the center divider was rear-ended by another car carrying three adults and two infants. Both cars burst into flame, officers said.

At least 16 cars, pickup trucks and motor homes were involved in what appeared to be two nearly simultaneous accidents about 1:20 p.m. on the Grapevine, about seven miles north of the Los Angeles County line, authorities said.

Two rescue helicopters had to land about several miles away at the foot of the Grapevine because of poor visibility, and some of the injured were taken to them by ambulance.

CHP Officer Grant Vaughn said the accident began when “somebody started to spin out in the rain, and then everybody hit their brakes.”

He said the injured included a woman and two infants thrown from a camper shell on the back of a pickup truck. A third driver was seriously hurt minutes later when her car spun out of control and flipped as she tried to slow down for the traffic jam, officers said.

Officers said that despite the drizzly weather, traffic was moving at about 80 m.p.h. when the cloudburst hit.

“It was raining real hard and they were all going down a 6% grade,” Vaughn said. “You’ve got to be real careful when you drive down that hill in the rain because if something goes wrong, you have absolutely no traction.”

In Diamond Bar, a 50-year-old woman and a 2-month-old boy were killed when a Nissan pickup truck they were riding in rear-ended a vehicle involved in a previous crash on the Pomona Freeway east of Grand Avenue, said CHP Officer Robert Smart.

The driver of the pickup, who was traveling about 60 m.p.h., apparently did not see two other cars that had been involved in the crash in front of him, the officer said.

The two dead passengers were riding in the front seat but were not wearing seat belts, the CHP said. The driver and four other people riding in a camper shell in back of the pickup were also injured in the incident about 2 a.m.

“It was raining all night and people just can’t see as well and they don’t have enough time to brake,” said a CHP officer.

On the San Bernardino Freeway just east of Pomona, another motorist was killed and 16 were injured in a chain-reaction collision after a flatbed truck carrying 2,000 pounds of live catfish overturned and began leaking liquid oxygen refrigerant.

Ella Mae Macias, 48, of Dublin, Calif., was killed when the truck rear-ended her van, causing it to roll over in the freeway’s westbound lanes at about 11 a.m., authorities said. Six other vehicles piled up behind Macias.

The truck’s driver, traveling 60 m.p.h., braked while approaching the stopped traffic and lost control on the wet pavement, authorities said. Macias, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown out of the van as it rolled, said Jim Sedgwick, San Bernardino County deputy coroner’s investigator.

Almost immediately after that crash, several more vehicles collided in the eastbound lanes of the freeway, causing minor injuries , said Montclair Police Sgt. Chris Weiske.

Montclair police and CHP officers blocked three of the freeway’s four westbound lanes for about five hours while they cleared the wreckage and truckload of fish, which Weiske said were “still kickin’ there for about three hours” after the collision.

Because of the risk of explosion from the leaking liquid oxygen, police also evacuated about 50 people from the parking lot of the Montclair Plaza shopping mall until the chemical had dissipated, Weiske said.

In other freeway fatalities:

* A 39-year-old Huntington Beach man was killed when his car slammed into the back of a stopped vehicle on the Golden State Freeway in Norwalk, authorities said.

The man, who was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown partially through his windshield, apparently did not see the vehicle he hit, which had crashed into another car just south of Norwalk Boulevard in the 3:12 a.m. accident, the CHP said.

* A woman was killed about 12:30 p.m., authorities said, when her car spun out on the Ventura Freeway in Glendale and struck a concrete abutment.

* A man in his late 20s was killed just before 11 a.m. Sunday when a semi-tractor collided with a pickup truck on the Pomona Freeway near Hacienda Heights, Caltrans officials said.

* An unidentified man was killed when his car rammed a power pole on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley about 3 a.m. Sunday, Los Angeles police said.

Times staff writers Shawn Hubler and Carol Watson contributed to this story.