Bad Crash Washington State - WA18 Between I-90 and WA-167

I'm waiting on this one to be cleared. Happened a minute or two in front of me. Nobody moving either direction because a truck is jackknifed and blocking the road, ditch to ditch. If you're familiar with this road you know it's narrow with steep, treed terrain immediately at each roadside.

From what I gathered second hand, a Mercer owner-op was headed south on 18 (towards Auburn, down that section of steep down grade). Going north (towards I-90) is 2 lanes due to the steep climb. Apparently both NB lanes were occupied with slower vehicles and a high-powered Dodge tried passing in the SB lane but did not make it over before hitting the SB Mercer truck head on at high speed. Other vehicles are involved I think but they are all on the other side. At least one fatality from what I can gather (driver of the passing vehicle I presume but not sure if that vehicle had other passengers)

The truck's momentum carried him further down the hill and later jackknifed blocking the entire road. The truck is totaled and will be a difficult tow-away given the terrain and truck front end condition. I'm NB and 4 trucks behind the blockage, burning my 14 hour clock. TA is full with no reserved parking so not sure where I'm going to get to once this thing is finally cleared or how much time I'll have. But I'm expecting at least 4 hours before road is cleared.

News reports to follow, no doubt ...

 

Crash happened about 45 minutes before dark.

Crash involving semi truck shuts down Highway 18 near Issaquah

 

probably but it's hard to sleep not knowing when the road will clear and be ready to move ASAP. If it turns into a 5 hour deal I'm screwed and end up breaking in the chain up area or hopefully a ramp before the Snoqualamie climb, if it's an 8 hour deal, I'm good. Regardless, I'm going to be operating on a sleep deficit tomorrow.

 

I'm too far back, and it's impossible to see what all is going on on the crash side of the blockage. I doubt they'll allow a big truck wrecker in until the last thing, and after they've done their investigation. There was also a fuel spill too from the big truck, so no telling what all that might involve but I guess they can do that remediation after traffic is allowed to clear out ... hopefully

 

I sat there about 2.5 hours watching some stuff recorded on DVR (no satellite connection in that hole) At some point, the WSP started escorting trucks, one at a time, backwards down the hill in the dark providing light, to a point wide enough to make a u-turn.

Special note of thanks to the WSP and other first responders for making the best of a bad situation. I opted to go through the pig trail through to Issaquah. I won't do that again, but I made it and probably saved 25 minutes as opposed to going all the way down and around via 405 back to 90. Barely made it Moses Lake on my 14. It's still closed as of 21:00 local. Not looking forward to the on/off snow/ice trek across Montana tomorrow.

 

Heard somebody say an occupant of the four wheeler was ejected and deceased. Apparently there were only two vehicles involved.