Multi-vehicle crash closed down I-81 north

MCADOO, SCHUYLKILL COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — A multiple-vehicle crash shut down a large section of Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County.

According to PennDOT, the crash occurred during a snow squall moving across the area, lasting a few minutes around 1:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon involving 50 vehicles.

The squall caused a traffic pileup that closed part of Interstate 81 for several hours with dozens of drivers getting caught up in the crash.

The multi-vehicle crash was on I-81 northbound between exit 138 Route 309 in the Mcadoo/Tamaqua area and 1 mile north of exit 141 in the greater Hazleton area.

According to Pennsylvania State Police, the snow squall caused near-zero visibility. The initial crash involved 3 commercial vehicles and 10 passenger vehicles, 4 people sustained non-life-threatening injuries. Four more crashes occurred in the back end of the pile-up with one [erson reporting an injury.

A first responder tells us around 50 cars and tractor-trailers were involved in the crash in the McAdoo area. The chain reaction crash sent 5 people to the hospital and kept so many more in stopped traffic for hours.

Cars and tractor-trailers were scattered on the highway. Damage and debris covered the ground.

“That’s crazy. It blew my mind,” said Gianna Giranda.

Drivers like Gianna Giranda couldn’t believe what led to the massive pileup. It forced Nick Stefanowicz to get off the highway.

“It was pretty bad, like, you couldn’t see, like, ten feet in front of you and, like, it was just coming down hard,” stated Stefanowicz.

“Even if you were going 10 miles an hour on this road when I went to stop this fire truck, I started sliding across the road here and I was only going 2 miles an hour,” said Cheif Robert Leshko of the McAdoo Fire Company.

McAdoo Fire Cheif Leshko tells Eyewitness News it all started shortly after an emergency snow squall alert from the national weather service.

“Well, that snow squall alert actually came through on my phone, and probably within 5, 10 minutes later we were coming out here,” explained Cheif Leshko.

Crews from Schuylkill and Luzerne counties responded to the crash that damaged 15 vehicles and sent 5 people to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Hazleton.

Chief Leshko says the blustery snow squall that likely caused the crash was both fast and furious.

“I think a lot of this was just the snow squall coming through and the road conditions just going from good, as we’re seeing now, too bad in a matter of 30 seconds to a minute,” stated Leshko.

With I-81 northbound traffic ground to a halt because of the crash, a detour made it slow going on nearby Route 309.

Giranda found that out the hard way trying to get from her home a street away to her job at Fegley Mini-Mart.

“Getting across the street was the problem and I was stuck behind a bunch of tractor-trailers and it took, like, 5 minutes to move,” explained Giranda.

PennDOT stated the road was cleared of the crash around 7:00 p.m. and the highway has re-opened. State Police Frackville are conducting five investigations into the pileup.