Snowstorm causes spinouts, crashes; shuts down I-90 for hours Friday

The Washington Huskies are once again Pac-12 North Champions. But anyone people heading home from the Apple Cup had to deal with some messy travel.

I-90 in both directions was closed for about three hours Friday night.

The snow storm also snarled travel plans for people traveling Friday for Thanksgiving weekend.

The heaviest part of the storm came on quickly. Within one hour between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., WSDOT warnings went from traction tires advised, to chains required, to shutting down the highway – first just I-90 eastbound, then in both directions.

I-90 became a parking lot, with cars strewn all over the highway.

Within just a few hours, Washington State Patrol said there were more than 20 cars disabled, and 10 crashes in the Snoqualmie area.

But many of the drivers impacted would've been much worse off, were it not for all sorts of Good Samaritans stopping to help others.

“We're on our way back from Thanksgiving dinner, we're heading out to Spokane,” said Alec Provan, pushing out drivers stuck in the snow with his brother, Conrad.

I-90 was strewn with drivers stuck. Some were struggling to put on chains, others didn’t know how to use them, and others still were not traveling with any.

KIRO7’s Deedee Sun saw a WSDOT snow plow pushing a Wal-Mart semi-truck.

People got creative – one  person sat on the hood of a car to weigh it down for more traction and the engine gunned so hard, the car backfired, sending sparks out the muffler.

“It's madness out here,” said Vadeem Gubarik, who lives in Kent and stopped to also try and help. “Cars are everywhere, there's semis jackknifed,” Gubarik said.

“I was trying to go to Spokane and I just didn't expect this to be this bad,” said

Azeem Khan, from Sammamish. He got stuck in the snow for more than an hour and eventually, Gubarik and the Provan brothers helped push him out.

“Go, go, go, go! Keep going!” they shouted. “Wooo! Don’t stop!” they cheered.

They pushed out at least five or six cars from the snow.

A winter storm warning for the area will be in effect until 4am Saturday, and roads are expected to stay icy into the morning.

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