Pedro Mata said he knew trouble was coming the second his pickup started to skate on I-196. The 52-year-old Michigan resident was driving west toward Holland around 10am Monday when visibility dropped in the blowing snow, vehicles began to fishtail, and a FedEx box truck slid sideways. Sensing he was about to be part of a chain reaction, he steered into a ditch to get out of the way, Michigan Live reports. Minutes later, he said, came the "booms" and "clashing" of what Michigan police now say was roughly a 100-vehicle pileup between Hudsonville and Zeeland, including an estimated 30 to 40 semis. Authorities reported multiple injuries but, as of Monday afternoon, no deaths. State police shut both directions of I-196, with cleanup expected to take about eight hours.
Mata, who posted video of the aftermath on Facebook, described trucks scattered off the roadway, a car jammed into the side of a tractor-trailer, and vehicles stacked up in every lane. One driver who was just ahead of the crash reported whiteout conditions, per the Detroit News. Driving 20 to 25 mph before the crash, Mata said he could see only a few taillights ahead and didn't grasp how bad conditions were until he climbed a median hill and looked down at the wreckage: "Pretty intense. A lot of semis." After stopping, Mata went car to car to check on people.
One driver with a badly damaged vehicle and an apparent knee injury waited in Mata's running truck to stay warm. Another person, he said, had a broken leg, and several were trapped because their doors wouldn't open. Buses from Hudsonville schools and Max Transit were brought in to move stranded motorists to shelter, including Hudsonville High School. A state legislator from Hudsonville who drove through just before the pileup said that stretch is problematic. "There's some open farm fields there and a kind of peak in the road," Sen. Roger Victory said. "You can be going through some pretty decent conditions, and then you hit a squall, and it's trouble."
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