00:00:07
I felt like I was in a war zone with the
00:00:10
explosions, the smell of smoke, uh the
00:00:12
smell of burning flesh, people
00:00:14
screaming.
00:00:15
>> It was the single most deadly automobile
00:00:18
accident in American history. 99
00:00:22
vehicles, most of them destroyed.
00:00:26
12 people died.
00:00:27
>> Identifiable
00:00:32
more than 50 were injured.
00:00:36
>> Total destruction.
00:00:38
>> If I hadn't been there and and I
00:00:40
witnessed it, I don't believe I could
00:00:42
have believed.
00:00:44
>> The accident happened along a three-mile
00:00:46
stretch of highway long known for dense,
00:00:49
thick fog. But what was causing the fog?
00:00:54
The victims and their families wanted
00:00:57
answers.
00:00:59
[Music]
00:01:07
[Music]
00:01:18
[Applause]
00:01:26
The accident occurred on Interstate 75
00:01:28
in Tennessee on a portion of highway
00:01:30
between Chattanooga and Knoxville.
00:01:34
The highway was constructed through a
00:01:36
valley which lies between the Cumberland
00:01:38
and Great Smoky Mountains. From the time
00:01:41
the highway first opened back in 1973,
00:01:44
there had been numerous multi-vehicle
00:01:45
chain reaction accidents in the same
00:01:48
three-mile section.
00:01:50
The first occurred just 4 months after
00:01:52
the highway opened.
00:01:54
Three people died in a 17c car pileup.
00:01:58
10 were injured.
00:02:00
Just one month later, there was a
00:02:02
ninecar accident. Although there were no
00:02:05
deaths, nine were injured.
00:02:08
During the first 6 years the highway was
00:02:10
open, there was an average of one
00:02:12
multi-car accident each year.
00:02:15
One of the largest was in November of
00:02:17
1978, involving more than 60 vehicles.
00:02:21
Six people were killed. nearly 100
00:02:24
injured.
00:02:25
All of the accidents had one thing in
00:02:28
common, the sudden appearance of a
00:02:31
dense, thick fog, reducing visibility to
00:02:34
near zero. Tennessee State Highway
00:02:36
officials responded by installing fog
00:02:38
warning lights to warn drivers when fog
00:02:41
was in the area. Highway patrol officers
00:02:43
were posted to stand watch every morning
00:02:46
along the fogprone area to make sure
00:02:48
drivers slowed down when the fog warning
00:02:50
lights were activated.
00:02:52
The combination of these two systems
00:02:55
worked. For 11 years, there were no
00:02:58
major accidents along the fog-prone
00:03:00
stretch of Interstate 75.
00:03:03
But all of that changed on December
00:03:06
11th, 1990.
00:03:08
>> It's a massive wreck. Everybody's
00:03:10
bumping into everybody.
00:03:13
>> I've had several reports I've had an
00:03:14
explosion in that area, and they're
00:03:16
still piling up. As I rolled down the
00:03:18
window, I could hear the cars just
00:03:20
crashing into each other one after
00:03:21
another.
00:03:22
>> A motor home hit the front end of my
00:03:24
truck after just seconds after I had
00:03:27
gotten out. And then vehicle started
00:03:29
hitting the back of it. I'll never
00:03:32
forget hearing one. He hit other cars
00:03:34
and just knocked them out of the way
00:03:36
like there were nothing and came and
00:03:38
crashed just to the right of that motor
00:03:39
home. The explosion was such that it
00:03:42
almost knocked me down.
00:03:44
Mike Curtis pulled this 14-year-old boy
00:03:47
out of the motor home, then rescued the
00:03:50
boy's mother.
00:03:52
>> And I turned and went back to get her
00:03:54
husband. All I could see was fire. I
00:03:57
could smell hair burning.
00:03:59
His coat came off burning in my hands.
00:04:05
[Music]
00:04:09
It's probably the hardest thing I've
00:04:10
ever had to witness.
00:04:14
The most helpless feeling I've ever had.
00:04:17
[Music]
00:04:19
The man burned to death.
00:04:22
12 people were killed, 56 others
00:04:25
injured, making it the largest vehicular
00:04:29
accident in American history.
00:04:32
These pictures were taken shortly after
00:04:34
the accident when most of the fog had
00:04:37
dissipated. The vehicles that I saw, I
00:04:40
don't even know if you could classify
00:04:41
them as vehicles. What normally was a
00:04:43
pickup truck was 3 foot in length, body
00:04:46
still in it.
00:04:47
>> After 11 years without a serious
00:04:50
accident, the killer fog had struck
00:04:53
again.
00:04:55
But why? The families of the dead and
00:04:58
injured demanded answers. They wanted to
00:05:02
know what caused the dense thick fog on
00:05:06
December 11th, 1990.
00:05:09
[Music]
00:05:16
On December 11th, 1990,
00:05:19
30-year-old Craig Piper was driving his
00:05:21
tractor trailer south on Interstate 75
00:05:25
on his way to visit his mother for the
00:05:27
holidays.
00:05:31
[Music]
00:05:38
When he entered the thick, dense fog,
00:05:41
visibility was near zero.
00:05:47
Within seconds, he crashed.
00:05:52
[Music]
00:05:56
The flames were extremely intense and I
00:05:58
knew there wasn't any way I could get
00:05:59
him out. And I had to stand there and
00:06:01
watch this man burn uh in his vehicle.
00:06:04
There wasn't really anything I could do.
00:06:05
Flames were too big. I didn't have a
00:06:06
fire extinguisher. I just had to stand
00:06:08
there and watch this this this man burn
00:06:10
alive.
00:06:11
>> Craig Piper's mother wanted answers and
00:06:14
hired attorney Doug Fees, who was not
00:06:17
only a lawyer, but also an engineer. She
00:06:20
wanted Feast to find out what caused the
00:06:22
terrible fog that was responsible for
00:06:25
her son's death.
00:06:26
>> She said the the two people in that car
00:06:29
were killed and that her son had been
00:06:31
burned alive in his tractor trailer and
00:06:35
was wondering if there was anything that
00:06:37
I could do to help her.
00:06:40
The accident occurred along Interstate
00:06:42
75 at its lowest point in the valley
00:06:44
about a half mile from where the
00:06:46
interstate crosses the Hawaias River.
00:06:49
Because of its location, fog has always
00:06:51
been common in this area. Fog is
00:06:54
basically a cloud which forms on the
00:06:57
ground. Fog occurs when there is too
00:07:00
much water in the air for the atmosphere
00:07:02
to absorb. Since cooler air holds less
00:07:05
moisture than warm air and cool air
00:07:08
gathers in lowlying areas, the valley
00:07:11
through which Interstate 75 passes is
00:07:13
perfect for the formation of natural
00:07:16
fog.
00:07:18
But the fog described by the accident
00:07:20
victims was extremely thick and dense.
00:07:24
Was the fog on the day of the accident
00:07:26
naturally produced or was it caused by
00:07:30
one or more of the local industries
00:07:33
nearby?
00:07:34
>> On those three days there there was some
00:07:37
amount of river fog uh although it was
00:07:39
relatively small. Uh on all three days
00:07:42
there was a very noticeable uh emission
00:07:45
of fog related uh water vapor uh from
00:07:49
the uh from the Bowwater facility. The
00:07:52
Bowwater Paper Company is located 3
00:07:54
miles to the east of the Interstate
00:07:56
Highway. It is the largest producer of
00:07:59
newsprint in North America and releases
00:08:02
large quantities of water vapor into the
00:08:04
atmosphere 24 hours a day as part of the
00:08:08
manufacturing process. Wayne Davis
00:08:11
recommended that the state of Tennessee
00:08:12
conduct a more detailed study in order
00:08:14
to understand the cause of the fogging
00:08:17
conditions. The state decided not to
00:08:19
fund a more detailed study, but elected
00:08:22
to install a fog warning system along
00:08:24
the highway and posted state troopers to
00:08:26
patrol the fog-prone stretch of highway
00:08:28
each and every morning. For 11 years,
00:08:31
the system worked. Between 1979 and
00:08:35
1990, there were no serious
00:08:37
multi-vehicle accidents along the 3m
00:08:39
stretch of Interstate 75. The system
00:08:42
worked
00:08:45
until December 11th, 1990.
00:08:49
The Wayne Davis study was an important
00:08:52
starting point for Doug Fees. But the
00:08:54
Davis study was conducted 12 years
00:08:57
earlier. Fees needed to know what caused
00:09:00
the fog on December 11th, 1990.
00:09:04
>> Doug Fees heard about a scientist who
00:09:06
was using computers to track weather
00:09:09
conditions and pollutants.
00:09:12
Was it possible that science could
00:09:15
recreate the weather condition on the
00:09:17
day of the accident?
00:09:23
Attorney Doug Fees wanted to know if the
00:09:26
thick dense fog on the morning of the
00:09:27
accident had been produced naturally or
00:09:30
was caused by one or more of the local
00:09:32
industries or some combination of both.
00:09:36
To find out, he hired Dr. Alan
00:09:38
Eschinrotor who teaches civil
00:09:40
engineering at Harvard University. His
00:09:42
area of expertise is risk management and
00:09:45
he also runs a consulting firm which
00:09:48
specializes in air quality modeling.
00:09:50
Eshenroer gathered weather information
00:09:52
about the morning of the accident from
00:09:54
the Knoxville and Chattanooga airports
00:09:57
as well as from two nuclear power
00:09:58
plants, one only 18 miles from the
00:10:01
scene. Weather records indicated that
00:10:04
there were few if any clouds on the
00:10:07
morning of the accident. Winds were
00:10:09
light and the temperature dropped
00:10:11
rapidly the night before from a high of
00:10:14
60° in the afternoon to almost freezing.
00:10:18
This 30° drop in temperature could cause
00:10:21
a weather phenomenon called an
00:10:24
inversion. An inversion occurs when the
00:10:27
temperature on the ground is cooler than
00:10:30
the temperature in the atmosphere. This
00:10:33
prevents air and moisture from
00:10:34
dissipating into the atmosphere, pushing
00:10:37
the moisture back towards the ground.
00:10:40
Very early on the morning of the
00:10:41
accident, a helicopter pilot flying over
00:10:44
Interstate 75 noticed a mushroomshaped
00:10:47
cloud similar to this one over the
00:10:50
Bowwater paper mill smoke stacks 3 mi
00:10:53
east of the accident site. Echinroder
00:10:56
believes this was visual confirmation of
00:10:59
the inversion. Water vapor is produced
00:11:01
naturally coming from evaporation from
00:11:04
lakes, streams, rivers and ground
00:11:06
moisture. Dr. Esshinroer calculated that
00:11:09
the evaporation rate of the natural
00:11:11
bodies of water in the area was only 392
00:11:15
gall per day. This was barely enough to
00:11:17
create even a light fog, let alone the
00:11:20
dense, thick fog described by accident
00:11:23
victims and rescue personnel. Echinrotor
00:11:26
was convinced there had to be another
00:11:29
source of water vapor which caused the
00:11:32
thick fog. He noticed a series of ponds
00:11:35
which straddled the interstate highway
00:11:37
on two sides. These were wastewater
00:11:40
treatment ponds which belonged to the
00:11:43
Bowwater paper plant. These ponds were
00:11:46
used to clean the industrial waste water
00:11:48
from the paper mill. In two of the
00:11:50
ponds, air raator fans would propel the
00:11:53
water up into the air. Most of the water
00:11:56
dropped back into the ponds. Some of it
00:11:58
did not.
00:11:59
>> That's called drift. Drift droplets are
00:12:02
things that drift away from the site of
00:12:04
where they are formed. All the other
00:12:06
droplets fall back to earth or fall back
00:12:08
to the pond where they originate. So we
00:12:11
had to do some original calculations in
00:12:14
an engineering estimate fashion for
00:12:16
emission of those droplets.
00:12:18
>> Rotor calculated that these wastewater
00:12:21
treatment ponds added 10 million gallons
00:12:24
of water vapor into the atmosphere in
00:12:27
the 24 hours preceding the accident. far
00:12:30
more than the 392 gall from the natural
00:12:34
bodies of water. At the paper plant
00:12:36
itself, an additional 1.5 million
00:12:40
gallons of water vapor was being
00:12:41
released each day from the smoke stacks.
00:12:45
But it wasn't just water vapor that was
00:12:47
being released from these smoke stacks.
00:12:50
Paper plants released what are called
00:12:52
particullet as waste from the paper
00:12:54
production process. Particulates are
00:12:57
microscopic particles which become
00:12:59
surfaces on which water vapor can
00:13:02
condense and this leads to fog. You not
00:13:05
only had the fog potential from the
00:13:08
presence of the water vapor, but you had
00:13:09
a place for it to form in the surfaces
00:13:12
of these microparticles, these
00:13:14
condensation nuclei. But how could
00:13:16
Echinrotor tell if the water vapor from
00:13:19
the Bowwater paper plant 3 miles away
00:13:22
caused the fog on the interstate highway
00:13:24
on the day of the accident? He found
00:13:27
part of the answer on this aerial
00:13:30
videotape shot by a local videographer a
00:13:33
few hours after the accident. Echinroer
00:13:36
recognized the wind pattern as a
00:13:39
drainage flow which carries cooler air
00:13:42
down into the valley. But Eschinroer
00:13:44
needed to know in which direction the
00:13:46
drainage flow was heading. To do that,
00:13:49
he needed to know the exact position of
00:13:52
the airplane. Using navigational charts,
00:13:55
calculating the position of the sun from
00:13:57
the glint angle off the wing and ground
00:14:00
references, he identified the plane's
00:14:03
position relative to the paper mill and
00:14:05
the accident site. The videotape
00:14:07
convinced Ashen Rotor that the drainage
00:14:10
flow wind pattern was headed west from
00:14:13
the location of the paper mill towards
00:14:16
the accident site.
00:14:17
>> As to the cause of that accident that
00:14:19
day, there's no doubt in my mind that
00:14:21
the industrial fog created by water
00:14:24
emissions from that bowwater paper mill
00:14:27
was a major factor, the major factor,
00:14:30
preponderantly major factor in forming
00:14:32
the fog that caused the accident.
00:14:35
Attorney Doug Fees now had scientific
00:14:38
evidence and proceeded with the civil
00:14:41
suit he filed earlier against the
00:14:43
Bowwater Paper Company and the state of
00:14:47
Tennessee.
00:14:52
As Mike Curtis drove onto Interstate 75
00:14:55
on the morning of the accident, the sun
00:14:57
was so strong he took his jacket off in
00:15:00
the car. When Curtis approached the fog
00:15:02
zone, the fog warning lights in one
00:15:05
direction weren't working, and those in
00:15:07
the other direction had been blinking
00:15:09
continuously for 3 days and were
00:15:11
ignored.
00:15:13
The daily police fog patrols had been
00:15:15
abandoned years earlier. Once in the
00:15:19
thick fog, visibility was near zero.
00:15:23
Mike Curtis never saw what he hit.
00:15:27
Curtis heard crashes, people crying for
00:15:29
help, the explosions.
00:15:31
>> I knelt down and asked God to help me
00:15:35
to get through it.
00:15:37
>> He helped a young boy caught inside a
00:15:39
motor home.
00:15:40
>> Uh 12 or 13 year old boy that I got out.
00:15:43
His mother was inside screaming. The
00:15:46
adrenaline was pumping and I ripped the
00:15:49
window out and got her out. After saving
00:15:52
the boy and his mother, Curtis tried to
00:15:53
save the father, but he burned to death.
00:15:58
There was also tragedy for a woman
00:16:00
driving with her granddaughter.
00:16:04
This is all that was left of the car.
00:16:06
This car was smashed completely flat
00:16:08
like an accordion.
00:16:09
>> The car was compacted down to something
00:16:11
in the neighborhood of 30 in long. By
00:16:13
some miracle, this little girl lived
00:16:15
through the entire thing.
00:16:16
>> The grandmother died.
00:16:19
Randall McKeon and his two children also
00:16:22
suffered a loss that day. They lost a
00:16:25
wife and mother when Judith McKon burned
00:16:27
to death in the accident. There wasn't
00:16:30
no body. She was over 90% gone. It was
00:16:35
like she had been cremated
00:16:39
and uh there wasn't nothing to view. She
00:16:42
still had remains, ashes,
00:16:46
which
00:16:47
I'm not saying could be identified, but
00:16:50
still knowing that she died in that
00:16:53
vehicle,
00:16:56
I uh
00:16:58
did the best I could to get everything
00:17:01
of all the ashes out and I spread them
00:17:05
across that field right out there.
00:17:10
And uh
00:17:15
I I just
00:17:18
I guess that was uh
00:17:22
the only thing I knew to do.
00:17:26
Doug Fee's case was set for trial in
00:17:28
1994, more than 3 years after the
00:17:32
accident. Bowwater disagreed with the
00:17:34
scientific calculations used in the
00:17:36
Echinrotor study and hired its own
00:17:39
scientific expert. Dr. George Mciel is a
00:17:42
meteorologist from Denver. His study
00:17:45
concluded that Bowwater's contribution
00:17:47
to the fog on the day of the accident
00:17:49
was less than 1%. Our conclusion was
00:17:53
that the fog formed by a natural process
00:17:57
due to mixing of moist air at different
00:17:59
altitudes at about 9:00 on the morning
00:18:04
of December 11th after the sun had come
00:18:06
up and heated the ground enough to start
00:18:08
the mixing process. And that in in a
00:18:12
very abbreviated and simplified form is
00:18:15
what caused the fog on that morning.
00:18:16
>> But shortly before the trial, the courts
00:18:19
ordered Bowwater to release a study. it
00:18:21
commissioned in 1979 from its own
00:18:25
consulting firm environmental research
00:18:28
and technology.
00:18:29
In it, ERT states that preliminary
00:18:34
evidence suggests that bowwater
00:18:36
operations contribute to local vapor
00:18:40
flux and fogging problems in the Calhoun
00:18:43
area. Doug Fees never got the chance to
00:18:46
prove his case in court.
00:18:49
Before the trial, the state of Tennessee
00:18:52
reached an outofc court settlement with
00:18:53
fees on behalf of the families he
00:18:55
represented. Because of the
00:18:57
malfunctioning fog warning system, the
00:19:00
state settled for $800,000
00:19:03
and also agreed to install a $4 million
00:19:06
computerized fog detection system. When
00:19:09
the fog reaches a certain density, large
00:19:12
signs automatically notify drivers of
00:19:15
fog in the area and sensors trigger
00:19:18
gates on key entrance ramps closing
00:19:21
access to the highway.
00:19:23
Bowwater also settled out of court with
00:19:26
30 victims and families represented by
00:19:28
Doug fees and other attorneys for $1
00:19:31
million. Bowwater continues to maintain
00:19:35
that the paper mill and treatment ponds
00:19:37
had nothing to do with the fog on the
00:19:39
day of the accident. However, Bowwater
00:19:43
agreed to limit its use of treatment
00:19:45
pond number four, which sits near the
00:19:48
highway.
00:19:49
>> But the issue isn't whether or not pond
00:19:53
4 is a contributor to fog, whether
00:19:55
natural water conditions that are in the
00:19:58
community are contributors to fog. The
00:20:00
real point is that fog exists in that
00:20:04
particular place from time to time. It's
00:20:07
natural fog and the traffic control
00:20:10
mechanisms on the highway have to be
00:20:12
sufficient to warn motorists.
00:20:15
>> Despite the settlement and the new fog
00:20:18
warning system, many still believe the
00:20:22
highway is unsafe.
00:20:24
>> Warnings are never the answer when you
00:20:26
can do better. closure of pond 4 is not
00:20:29
enough to to solve the problem.
00:20:35
The chance
00:20:37
of this happening again has been
00:20:39
substantially reduced, but the risk has
00:20:43
not been eliminated,
00:20:46
nor has the hazard been eliminated.
00:20:48
>> This is only the third time I've been
00:20:50
here.
00:20:51
It's uh and any officer would tell you
00:20:55
that, you know, this is a to me it's a
00:20:57
memorial site. That bridge is a memorial
00:21:00
cuz a lot of people died here.
00:21:02
Needlessly
00:21:03
[Music]
00:21:14
[Music]
00:21:15
[Applause]
00:21:18
Good morning.
00:21:20
[Music]
