BEAVER COUNTY, Utah, March 13, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — The first vehicle slide offs Friday afternoon on Interstate 15 near Beaver were called in to dispatch at about 3:55 p.m.
Cpl. Tara Wahlberg, Utah Highway Patrol, told Gephardt Daily about three hours later that the number of collisions on the slick, snowy highway now is “probably in the teens, and maybe the 20s,” which was a “guestimation,” and the actual number is unknown.
Wahlberg said the only injuries appear minor, even those associated with the largest vehicle to slide off the road, a semi that rolled after 6 p.m.
“The first slide off was a single vehicle, then we started getting multiple vehicle crashes,” Wahlberg said. “It started piling up from there. It started at mile marker 115. Now everything is closed northbound at milepost 109, then southbound and Manderfield.”
The roadways remain closed or open only in limited lanes.
“There are people who have been sitting in their vehicles there for three hours,” Wahlberg said.
UHP officials are doing their best to document accidents and clear the roadway, she said.
