WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Investigators have yet to release what led up to a fatal crash involving a truck Monday on Interstate 95 southbound in West Palm Beach that tied up traffic for hours.
Authorities spent hours at the scene investigating the wreck near the Belvedere Road exit, which left thousands of drivers searching for a way home.
Not only did the wreck cause delays on the interstate but also backups on multiple side streets.
"It was like bumper to bumper, crazy here, like, I've never seen traffic like that here before, really crazy," barber Antonio Gomes said.
Gomes is a barber on Military Trail in Palm Beach Gardens and had a front-row seat on the crash's impact miles away.
"They were doing shortcuts from Military [Trail] behind the building and getting off to Northlake [Boulevard] over there," Gomes said.
The Florida Highway Patrol said one man was killed in the fiery truck crash.
Investigators are not talking about how the crash occurred and said the details may take as long as 10 days.
"I-95 carries 190,000 to 200,00 vehicles a day, so it's a massive amount of traffic that it is carrying, and when it shuts down, that traffic is going to filter elsewhere," said Eric Dumbaugh, the associate director of the Urban and Regional Planning department at Florida Atlantic University.
Dumbaugh said South Florida's side roads, like Military Trail, are actually better at handling traffic tie-ups than most places.
"One of the things that distinguish South Florida's system from other regions in the country is the presence of that secondary arterial network," Dumbaugh said.
But days like Monday seemed to bring the system to its maximum capacity, leaving drivers looking for any way out.
Drivers these days at least have technology on their phones with navigation apps and alerts on social media, such as WPTV Traffic on Twitter, to find another route.
