Photo: Rogelio V Solis/AP/Shutterstock
Two people have died and 10 others are injured in Mississippi after a highway collapsed Monday night, according to local authorities.
Seven cars were involved in the incident at the two-lane Highway 26 in George County near Lucedale. Mississippi Highway Patrol Cpl. Cal Robertson said days of heavy rain fromHurricane Idalikely caused the road to be washed away, perThe Associated Press.
“You can imagine driving at night with heavy rain coming down,” Robertson said. “It’s just nothing but a wall of water, your headlights kind of reflecting back on you.”
“It’s tragic, and a lot of questions are going to have to be answered,” George County Sheriff Keith Havard said Tuesday, AP reported. “I think there was just too much rain and not enough drainage. It looks like a lake blew out.”
Both lanes of the highway crumbled around 10 p.m. on Monday, Robertson said. Many of the cars were stacked on top of one another after plummeting into the massive hole that formed on the rural roadway.
Rogelio V Solis/AP/Shutterstock
Rescuers used the Jaws of Life to extract a number of victims from vehicles that plunged into the hole — even forming a human chain to pass survivors out of the 30-foot pit,The Sun Heraldreported.
Jerry Lee, 49, of Lucedale, and Kent Brown, 49, of Leakesville, were pronounced dead within 10 minutes of each other just after 1 a.m., George County Coroner DeeAnn Murrah said, AP reported.
Still, Harvard expects the community will have more questions about the incident.
Tom King, the Mississippi southern district Transportation Commissioner, told The AP that he had not heard anything out of the ordinary regarding soil conditions around the area of the highway collapse.
“We just got bombarded here in south Mississippi with rain,” King said to the outlet, adding, “It’s going to take us a while to redo it and make it right again and make it safe for folks to go over.”
source: people.com
