Interstate 77 South in southwest Charlotte shut down for hours early yesterday after a crash just after 4 a.m. near Westinghouse Boulevard left three people hospitalized, one of them seriously injured. The closure stretched past Exit 1A, snarling one of the region’s busiest commuter corridors well into the morning.
According to WSOC-TV, the station’s Traffic Team 9 announced that I-77 southbound was closed at Westinghouse Boulevard because of the crash, with drivers diverted off the interstate as crews worked the scene and the station planned a live update starting at 4:30 a.m.
One Seriously Hurt as Crews Worked Through the Morning
A medic on scene reported two of the injuries were non-life-threatening, while the third patient was seriously hurt, per the outlet’s report. Crews continued working to clear the wreckage through the morning, and one lane reopened by 5:50 a.m., though the closure had already caused major delays for southbound drivers.
Channel 9 requested additional information from investigators about the events leading up to the crash, and as of Wednesday morning the outlet’s report remained a developing story, with no word yet on what caused the wreck.
One of Mecklenburg County’s Busiest, Most Dangerous Stretches
The segment of I-77 north of Westinghouse Boulevard carries roughly 179,500 vehicles a day, according to traffic study data from Connect NCDOT, making it one of the highest-volume freeway stretches in the county. Exit 1A, where Wednesday’s crash unfolded, sits less than a mile north of the Interstate 485 interchange near the North Carolina-South Carolina line, per Wikipedia, a geography that means closures there ripple quickly into cross-border commuter traffic…