An early-morning crash Friday involving a truckload of flaming cardboard caused a massive backup on northbound Highway 101 and havoc on Morgan Hill city street. The situation didn’t improve much until well after noon.
Santos Guillen, 42, of Hayward, apparently lost control of his tractor trailer, which hit the yellow safety barrels and the K-rail near the new Bailey Avenue offramp at 4:17am. CHP reported that the truck veered into the center median, back to the outer rail and back to the median, coming to rest in the two left lanes where it burst into flames. Guillen managed to escape and was not injured.
The Albertson’s/Save-On truck was soon fully engulfed, causing the northbound freeway to be closed, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Terry Mayes. At 4:30am CHP officers began diverting traffic off the freeway and onto Monterey Road so burning debris could be cleared.
Twenty minutes later two, of four, lanes reopened. Mayes said she heard reports that as the morning commute heated up traffic had backed up as far back as the weigh stations south of San Martin Avenue. By 8am the crush started at Dunne Avenue – only four miles long – but commuters still reported taking lots of extra time to get to work.
“It was an ugly morning commute,” Mayes said.
City Treasurer Mike Roorda, who works for Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, said the accident added about an hour to his normal drive.
“I got on the road about 6:40am,” Roorda said. “At that point it started to slow past Cochrane and we crept all the way.”
Much of the delay came from having to deal with the fire, Mayes said.
Roorda reported seeing a backhoe pulling burning or smoldering cardboard out so firefighters could put it out.
“It was something to see,” he said.
With thousands of extra vehicles dumped onto Cochrane and Monterey roads caused traffic headaches for Morgan Hill Police. By 7:30am the department put every officer on traffic control duty.
“We were all directing traffic up to Tilton,” said Lt. Joe Sampson, who is normally in charge of the detective division.
It just happened that he had worn his uniform because it helped to identify him as police.
“Lots of huge trucks were thundering by,” Sampson said.
The CHP first said it expected to open all four lanes by noon but it took until nearly 2pm before motorists reported a smooth ride – just in time for the Friday afternoon crush, southbound this time.
