STRING OF ACCIDENTS TIES UP TRAFFIC ON INTERSTATE 55

Cape Girardeau police officers were kept busy Thursday morning with a series of seven accidents involving a total of 17 cars, which occurred near the Diversion Channel bridge on Interstate 55.

The mayhem started shortly before 8 a.m., when a northbound van locked its brakes and spun around on the wet pavement and stopped just barely on the shoulder, facing south. Police were notified by a passing off-duty Missouri State Highway patrolman of the van almost immediately.

When an officer arrived, he parked behind the van emergency lights blazing shortly over the crest of a hill in the roadway.

That was when the trouble began.

Officer Dan Niswonger of the Cape Girardeau Police Department went to assist the first officer on the scene. He said that as he headed south to the location and crossed the median to the northbound lanes, five accidents occurred in less than two minutes.

Officers quickly cleared the roadway of debris from the initial accidents and went over the public address system in his car, asking the 13 motorists to follow him off the roadway to the Highway 61 exit ramp.

About 10 minutes later in almost the same location, four more vehicles including a cherry-picker truck collided, blocking the roadway for more than an hour. Traffic was backed up from the Diversion Channel bridge to the Scott City exit.

There were no injuries reported in any of the seven accidents. None of the drivers was cited for traffic violations.