Downburst causes deadly semi truck rollovers along the I-10 Wednesday night
NEAR TONOPAH, Ariz. - Authorities say strong winds during a rainstorm blew over six big rigs in multiple wrecks on Interstate 10 in southwestern Arizona, killing one person and injuring another.
Officials said the wrecks involving tractors pulling box trailers occurred at about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and that traffic soon after that was able to get around the wrecks by driving on the shoulder or an unaffected traffic lane.
"My truck did a couple of these, and I guess the other guys weren't loaded heavy enough and they just got blown right off the highway," said Robert McDonald.
McDonald was driving his truck along I-10 east when he was caught in Wednesday night's storms just west of Tonopah. Just about half a mile from him, six semis toppled over due to powerful winds on both the eastbound and westbound lanes, near milepost 83.
"It happened so quick nobody really had any time to do anything," said McDonald. "They just kept going."
DPS officials say one driver, identified as 69-year-old Ronald Dale Huff of Oregon, died Wednesday night. Ken Waters from the National Weather Service has spent hours analyzing the radar, and says there was a strong downburst present around the time the rollovers were reported.
"These storms are notorious for just rapidly developing and especially a downburst. Sometimes that can happen in just a few minutes," said Waters. "This was a little unusual in that there were so many. Six different rollover trucks at the same time, fatality out of this."
Related: Strong winds overturn big rigs on I-10 in Arizona; 1 killed
The Associated Press (AP) contributed to this report.
