Interstate 5 Freeway

A runaway truck carrying hazardous materials crashed into 11 other vehicles on Interstate 5 north of Tejon Pass on Wednesday, injuring 11 people and closing all northbound lanes for almost three hours, the California Highway Patrol said. The accident happened in thick fog shortly before 1 p.m. on the long grade that descends from the mountains into the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Caltrans has given the San Diego Minutemen a new stretch of road to clean up for the Adopt-A-Highway program, moving the group that fights illegal immigration from Interstate 5 near the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint to a quieter, less visible state highway. Caltrans officials say the change was made because of safety concerns.

A big-rig crash ignited a brush fire Thursday morning and shut down all but one lane of southbound Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton. For much of the day, southbound traffic was backed up for about 20 miles, into Orange County, as a tow truck and Caltrans workers tried to clear the wreckage, California Highway Patrol Officer Larry Landeros said. The semi-truck overturned about 5 a.m.

The federal government declined Thursday to breathe new life into a plan to carve a toll road through southern Orange County, apparently ending a contentious, years-long campaign by transportation officials who predict that without it, the current freeway system is destined for breakdown.

A 40-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were killed Wednesday night in a car crash on Interstate 5 just south of Highway 138 in northern Los Angeles County. The crash, which authorities said may have involved as many as five vehicles, was reported about 8:20 p.m., said a Los Angeles County Fire Department dispatcher. Three other people were injured in the crash, said California Highway Patrol Officer David Porter. At least two of the survivors were airlifted by helicopter, he said.

Big-rig drivers say they dread the tunnel. Some call it the worst in the state. The traffic lanes curve left toward Los Angeles and then, abruptly, the drivers find themselves in the tunnel, blinded in the dark. "I've been driving 23 years, and I hold my breath every time," said truck driver Fausto Evangelista, 42, as he weighed his big rig at a Commerce traffic stop Saturday night.

Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley has been shut down repeatedly over the years by snow, ice, brush fires and serious accidents. Usually the road is reopened within a few hours. But not this time. Friday night's fiery tunnel crash is expected to leave the critical route between Northern and Southern California closed until at least Tuesday, Caltrans officials said.

The fiery Interstate 5 truck crash that killed at least three people south of Santa Clarita has severed the state's main north-south transportation artery for an indefinite period, authorities said Saturday. Officials guessed that southbound lanes could reopen as early as Tuesday but were unwilling to speculate about the northbound lanes.

Commuters who drive on Interstate 5 today are being urged by Caltrans officials to use alternative routes even though the southbound lanes could reopen at 5 a.m. and the northbound lanes could reopen as early as this afternoon. "It would make the commute easier for everybody," said Caltrans spokeswoman Deborah Harris. An even better plan, officials said, would be to use Metrolink trains.

The promising news that part of Interstate 5 would reopen today arrived too late to calm the frayed nerves of Sharafali Shaherwalla. Late Sunday afternoon, Shaherwalla dragged himself into a Chevron mini-mart just off the freeway in Sylmar, searching for a way around the freeway pileup ahead that threatened to turn an otherwise placid drive into a maddening standstill.