Thursday, December 5, 2024

 I left when my 10 hours were up.  That was about 1:45 AM EST.  Not too long after I was on I-70 the weather changer abruptly.  I drove into a wall of snow and wind.

The weather got a LOT worse in Allegany and Garrett Counties in Maryland. Maryland did pretty good with the roads but it was coming down too fast for them to keep up with it.

West Virginia, on the other hand, did not have enough trucks and the roads got VERY BAD.  Here is where I almost got stuck going uphill.

After the weather cleared in West Virginia, it was smooth sailing until I got to about the 12-mile marker in I-70, westbound just before the Wheeling TA truck stop.  The traffic came to a stop for a crash up ahead.

WHAMO!  I was struck from behind.  He didn't even slow down.  He hit me at full speed.  My first thought was to get off the road so that we don't get hit again, so I pulled my truck to the shoulder dragging the truck that hit me.  I was not injured.  He was not so fortunate.  When I first looked at it I thought he was probably dead.  Fortunately, he was not.  He dislocated his shoulder and broke his collarbone. There was another pickup truck next to him and he struck it too forcing it to sideswipe the guardrail.  That driver was not injured.

The cops, the fire dept., and an ambulance all showed up.  Shut the westbound side down for at least three hours.  

Two roll-off wreckers, a small wrecker and a big wrecker, arrived. It took a while to separate the two vehicles. They removed the trailer from the truck that hit me.

Then they yanked and pulled on the white truck until it finally separated.

They loaded them on the two roll-offs.

Then it was my turn.  The wrecker guys were able to make it so that the trailer would move.  I drove to the TA truck stop that was just ahead.  The impact was so hard that I think my truck frame was bent.  I could not shift higher than 4th gear which only allowed me to go 8 miles an hour.  At the TA  I separated from my trailer and the wrecker company sent another truck to tow the trailer.  The big wrecker came over and towed me to their yard.   Enterprise Rent-A-Car came over from Wheeling and picked me up.  From there I went to the Best Western Hotel in Saint Clairsville, Ohio. Tomorrow I'll leave here and drive back to Carlisle, PA.  The plan right now is for me to get another truck and trailer and go back and get my trailer and take it to Carlisle.  Then go back and get my truck.  Now I'm going to sleep.  Good night.