Wyoming

One Dead After Fiery Semi Crash On Interstate 80 Near Rawlins

Published

4 months ago

September 7, 2024

One Dead After Fiery Semi Crash On Interstate 80 Near Rawlins

Update 6 p.m.: Interstate 80 has reopened after the eastbound lanes had been closed at Rawlins most of Saturday. This story has been updated with the latest information available.

Update 5:30 p.m.: The Wyoming Department of Transportation has lifted most of the closure notices for eastbound I-80, but the highway remains closed between Rawlins and exit 235 at Walcott Junction. Also, part of the reason for the closure is for fire crews to put out grass fires started by the crash. This story has been updated to reflect the latest information available.

Update 3:10 p.m.: The Wyoming Highway Patrol confirms one person died when two semitrailers collided Saturday morning and one became engulfed in flames. This story has been updated to reflect the latest information available.

Eastbound Interstate 80 at Rawlins has reopened after being closed for more eight hours Saturday after a fiery and fatal crash involving two semitrailers. The crash backed up traffic for miles and kept a host of University of Wyoming football fans from the team’s home opener.

Not much information about the crash has been available, but what has been reported is that it happened about 9:30 a.m. Saturday at about milepost 223 and had the interstate’s eastbound lanes under a rolling closure from exit 111 west of Rawlins and a full closure through exit 235 at Walcott Junction for most of the day, the Wyoming Department of Transportation reports.

As of 6 p.m., the last of the closures had been dropped and eastbound I-80 was open again.

Along with cleaning up the wreckage, the highway closure was extended because crews were also working to put out grass fires along the interstate caused by the crash, the Wyoming Department of Transportation reports.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol continues to investigate the crash, which killed an occupant of one of the trucks, WHP Trooper Jason Simmer told Cowboy State Daily.

After they collided, one of the commercial vehicles “was engulfed by fire,” according to a WHP report.

“Crews are working diligently to reopen the roadway; however, due to the heavy damage to the vechicles, it’s taking time to remove them safely from the highway,” the WHP report said.

That information corroborates what another WHP officer told Cody Lane at the Stinker I-80 Travel Plaza near Sinclair, where many of the stranded drivers waited for the highway to reopen.

“The Highway Patrol said there was at least one fatality, and that was all he was authorized to give out,” said Lane, an attendant at the truck stop.

A call to the Carbon County Coroner’s Office for more information about the crash fatality wasn’t returned.

Hurry Up And Wait

Lane said he’s used I-80 being closed for one reason or another, but it’s usually during winter for weather-related reasons.

“Honestly, we’re not too busy right now,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “Mostly the travelers come in and ask if there’s another way around. The last time the Highway Patrol was in here he said it’s going to be another three hours.”

He said travelers have reported various details about what they observed driving past the crash scene, but much of it is conflicting.

For example, Lane said he’s been told the crash may involve two semis, while another motorist said it looked like a semi had hit a smaller parked car.

“We don’t really know. We just know there was a big-old fire,” Lane said, adding he climbed on top of the truck stop to get a better view. “There was a big-old bunch of black smoke.”

Those who stuck around around and waited for the highway to reopen got a little hungry as the time passed, Lane said.

“They’re buying mostly snacks, like Cheez-Its, meat sticks, Gatorade and other snacky stuff,” he said.

Many of those waiting were UW Cowboys fans, he said, who had to listen to the game on the radio or try to stream a broadcast. The Cowboys lost 17-13 to the University of Idaho.

“Most of the travelers, yes, they say they were on the way to the game,” he said.

Others reported being stuck for hours in the bumper-to-bumper wall of semitrucks and other vehicles, posting their experiences to the popular Wyoming Road and Weather Conditiuons Reports Updates Facebook page.

“My kids have bene stuck out there for over six hours,” posted Robin Britt-Layton. “Thankfully they don’t ahve the babies with them.”

One of those who couldn’t get to the UW game was Lauri Shoopman, who posted that, “We tried getting to Ft. Steele every which way, didn’t happen. We just came home instead of traveling to the game.”

“I’m so glad I’m not stuck there anymore,” added Kellie Whitzel. “Two and a half hours was long enough.”

Jennifer Nelsen of Green River showed her relief when she posted “Finally!!!!” after waiting for hours for traffic to start moving.

Eastbound Interstate 80 at milepost 223 is closed after two semitrailers crashed Saturday morning. (Wyoming High Patrol)
This screenshot from a WYDOT webcam at the exit just east of Sinclair, Wyoming, shows a long line of cars waiting for the highway to reopen. (WYDOT)

Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.

Source link

Wyoming

Wyoming Legislature to Convene 2025 General Session Tuesday

Published

6 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Wyoming Legislature to Convene 2025 General Session Tuesday

The 68^th Wyoming Legislature will convene for the 2025 General Session on Tuesday at Noon. The bodies will hold opening ceremonies as their first order of business, and newly elected members of the Legislature and legislative leadership will be sworn in. Following a brief recess, the bodies will begin introduction and referral of bills Tuesday afternoon. All floor proceedings and committee meetings during the 2025 General Session will be broadcast live via the Legislature’s YouTube channel.

The Legislature will then convene in a joint session of the Wyoming Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday at 10 am, during the second day of legislative proceedings. At that time, Gov. Mark Gordon will deliver his State of the State message, followed by the State of the Judiciary message, delivered by Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice Kate M. Fox in the House Chamber at the Wyoming State Capitol.

Source link

Wyoming

230 Million-Year-Old Fossil From Wyoming Challenges Dinosaur Origin Theories

Published

13 hours ago

January 8, 2025

Press Room

230 Million-Year-Old Fossil From Wyoming Challenges Dinosaur Origin Theories

Though paleontologists have been discussing the origin and spread of dinosaurs for decades, the widely accepted theory was that they emerged in the southern part of the ancient continent of Pangea over 200 million years ago, and only spread northward millions of years later. A new study dramatically changes the conversation.

University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison) paleontologists announced the discovery of a new dinosaur that challenges the conventional theory about the dinosaurs’ origin and spread. The location and age of the newly-described fossils suggest that dinosaurs prowled the northern regions of Pangea millions of years earlier than previously hypothesized. The findings were detailed in a January 8 study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

“We’re kind of filling in some of this story, and we’re showing that the ideas that we’ve held for so long — ideas that were supported by the fragmented evidence that we had — weren’t quite right,” Dave Lovelace of the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum, who co-led the study, said in a UW–Madison statement. “We now have this piece of evidence that shows dinosaurs were here in the northern hemisphere much earlier than we thought.”

The paleontologists uncovered the theory-defying fossils in present-day Wyoming in 2013. Due to Earth’s shifting tectonic plates, this region was located near the equator over 200 million years ago on Laurasia, the northern half of Pangea (the southern half was called Gondwana). While the remains were fragmented, the paleontologists were able to attribute the fossils to a new dinosaur species they named Ahvaytum bahndooiveche, which was likely an early sauropod relative. Ahvaytum, however, looked very different from the iconic long-necked herbivores.

“It was basically the size of a chicken but with a really long tail,” said Lovelace. “We think of dinosaurs as these giant behemoths, but they didn’t start out that way.” The adult specimen was just over a foot tall (30.5 centimeters) and about three feet long (91.4 cm).

Perhaps most shockingly, however, is the age of the fossil. Lovelace and his colleagues used radioisotopic dating (a method for determining the age of materials by measuring radioactive decay) to determine that the rock layers where they’d found the Ahvaytum fossils—and thus roughly the remains themselves—were about 230 million years old. This makes Ahvaytum the oldest known Laurasian dinosaur, and about equivalent in age to the earliest known Gondwanan dinosaurs, according to the study. Dinosaurs first emerged during the Triassic period, around 230 million years ago. This era, which lasted from about 252 to 201 million years ago, saw the rise of the earliest dinos, before they became dominant in the Jurassic period.

“We have, with these fossils, the oldest equatorial dinosaur in the world — it’s also North America’s oldest dinosaur,” Lovelace added. The fact that the oldest known Laurasian dinosaur is about as old as the earliest known Gondwanan dinosaurs consequently challenges the theory that dinosaurs originated in the south of the ancient continent and only spread north millions of years later.

The site of the discovery is within the ancestral lands of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. As a result, the researchers partnered with tribal members throughout their work, and included Eastern Shoshone elders and middle school students in choosing the new dinosaur’s name. Ahvaytum bahndooiveche roughly translates to “long ago dinosaur” in the Eastern Shoshone language.

The region also yielded additional finds. The team identified an early dinosaur-like footprint in older rock layers, meaning that dinosaurs or dinosaur-related creatures were calling Laurasia home even before Ahvaytum. The paleontologists also uncovered the fossil of a newly described amphibian, which was also named in the Eastern Shoshone language.

In challenging long-standing theories about how dinosaurs spread across Pangea, the discovery of the chicken-sized Ahvaytum ultimately paints a clearer picture of the creatures that walked the Earth—and where—millions of years before us.

Source link