NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

INCIDENTS

Grand Teton NP

Trailer Crash Causes Highway Closures, Extrication Challenges

A large tractor-trailer truck veered off the road and into deep snow along Highway 89 just south of Gros Ventre Junction at 11:40 p.m. last Thursday night. The semi, which was hauling Coca-Cola products, became high centered and stuck in more than two feet of snow after it left the roadway and traveled down an embankment and about 100 feet into nearby sagebrush. Attempts to extricate the 93-ton vehicle from the snowpack, using two heavy-duty tow trucks, resulted in minor disruptions to traffic and some temporary closures of Highway 89 during Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. The driver of the truck apparently lost control of his vehicle when the right front tire drifted into a ridge of snow along the southbound lane of Highway 89. The driver was unable to steer his vehicle back onto the pavement, and the truck plunged down the roadside embankment into a deeper snowpack, where it came to rest upright. The driver was uninjured, but the semi was completely stuck, with its tires buried in snow up to the wheel-well cowlings. A Wyoming Highway Patrol officer responded to the accident scene and interviewed the driver at that time. Due to the significant weight of the truck, conventional towing equipment proved to be inadequate to pull it back onto the road late Thursday night. A heavy-duty tow truck from Snake River Towing Service of Idaho Falls, Idaho was therefore summoned on Friday morning, and, together with a heavy-duty tow truck from Flat Creek Towing of Jackson,Wyoming, a second attempt was made on Friday afternoon to pull the tractor-trailer out of the snowbank. This effort was also unsuccessful, and by late Friday afternoon, a crew from the local Coca-Cola distribution warehouse began to unload the truck's cargo in order to lighten its weight for a third extrication attempt. The cargo reportedly consisted of several thousand cases of Coke products. By reducing the tractor-trailer's cargo load, the two heavy-duty tow trucks were able to carefully and incrementally pull the rig up the embankment and back onto Highway 89. The truck was then driven to Jackson with no further delay. NOTE: For an image of the extrication effort, click on HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Incidents&id=4390" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type= Incidents&id=4390

[Jackie Skaggs, Public Affairs Officer]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:

Department of the Interior - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and hundreds of department employees enthusiastically welcomed First Lady Michelle Obama during her visit Monday to the Department of the Interior Building.

HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7339" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7339

Southeast Regional Office - Pat Ranels, a supervisory realty specialist in Southeast Region's Land Resources Program Center, retired on February 3rd after almost 32 years of federal service.

HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=PeopleNews&id=2243" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=PeopleNews&id=2243

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Submission standards for the Morning Report can be found at the following web site:

HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=3363" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=3363

Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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