All Hail Breaks Loose on the 101

A freak hail storm Thursday dumped an inch of miniature ice balls along the 101 Freeway at the border separating Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, setting off a string of car accidents during the morning commute that left one woman injured.

Twenty cars were damaged as startled motorists hit the brakes and hydroplaned, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Doug Howell said. The hail was isolated to a quarter-mile patch of the freeway. It came down in a matter of minutes and affected only the southbound lanes.

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain,” Howell said. “I’ve seen everything, but locusts. But this probably ranks up with the strangest I’ve seen. It was freaky.”

Eric Hilgendorf, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said hail isn’t unusual in Southern California this time of year. The conditions were just right Thursday morning: A thunderstorm pattern swirled above the area, and the temperature at a crucial altitude for the creation of hail was about 20 degrees colder than normal.

But Hilgendorf said it was unusual that so much hail accumulated in one spot. “That storm just sat there,” he said. The fact that the spot was on the freeway during rush hour was also a bit unusual, he said, and just bad luck.

Authorities got word of the storm about 7 a.m. By the time they arrived on the scene, cars were everywhere--some crunched together, others slung into embankments. Southbound lanes of the freeway were shut down at Bailard Avenue for an hour.

Officers said the only person hospitalized in the incident was 19-year-old Maragda Santillana, a volleyball player from Barcelona, Spain, who was being driven to a college recruitment trip.

Santillana was transported to Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara after sustaining head injuries. She was listed in fair condition.

Three wrecks involving seven cars were being investigated, but CHP officers did not expect to cite any drivers.

“We wrote this off as an act of God,” Howell said. “A driver is expected to drive at a speed reasonable for the conditions of the roadway. But this happened so fast and so violently that it’s my feeling even a reasonable, prudent driver couldn’t have foreseen what was going to happen.”

Bruce Hanna, 56, a Santa Barbara marketing executive on his way to work in Camarillo, said he didn’t see the hail until he was under it. He lost control of his gray BMW sedan, which veered off the road and ended up perched on a guardrail overlooking railroad tracks.

“I wish I hadn’t just spent $2,500 in repairs on my car, but that’s life,” he said. “The Beemer is really smashed, but I’m OK.”

Times staff photographer Steve Osman contributed to this story.