DIVERNON, Ill. (AP) — Winds stirred up a wall of dust from farm fields that engulfed a stretch of busy interstate highway in a matter of minutes. The brown cloud’s intensity caked even the insides of vehicles in dirt. As darkness enveloped them, some cars and trucks hurtling down the road put on their brakes; others didn’t. They slammed into one another, leaving them mangled or in some cases, burned. And when it was over, almost 40 people were injured and six people were dead — two of them still unidentifiable. Monday’s deadly and fiery crashes along a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 55 in central Illinois, 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of St. Louis and just south of the state capital of Springfield, came as high spring winds kicked up dust at a time when farmers are busy tilling or planting their fields, police said. “They were very unusual circumstances. Certainly dust storms happen, but it is not something that happens every day here in this part of Illinois or any part of Illinois,” Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said at a news conference Tuesday. The interstate highway was closed in both directions after Monday’s crashes, but northbound and southbound lanes reopened around 6 a.m. Tuesday, Kelly said. The crashes involved 40 to 60 cars, along with tractor-trailers, two of which caught fire, state police said. The six people who died were all in northbound lanes, while 37 people on both sides of I-55 were taken to hospitals. Those hurt in the crash range in age from 2 to 80 and have injuries from minor to life-threatening, police said. One of the six people killed was Shirley Harper, 88, of Franklin, Wisconsin, police said.
