A wall of thick Central Valley fog turned a routine weekend drive into a nightmare earlier this year, triggering a massive 59-vehicle chain reaction crash that shut down a major California highway and sent at least 10 people to the hospital. The pileup on Highway 99 left cars and big rigs crumpled across multiple lanes, closing a key north–south route for hours while rescuers worked through mangled metal and near-zero visibility. For drivers who rely on that stretch of road, it was a jarring reminder of how quickly conditions can flip from normal to life threatening.
Investigators say the wreck unfolded in Tulare County as visibility dropped to just a few car lengths, catching drivers off guard and leaving them little time to react. By the time traffic finally stopped, dozens of Vehicles were stacked, flipped, or shoved off the roadway, and Ten people had been rushed to area hospitals with injuries. The highway eventually reopened, but the questions it raised about fog, speed, and safety on one of California’s busiest corridors are not clearing nearly as fast.
How a foggy morning turned Highway 99 into a demolition zone
The chain reaction started on California’s Highway 99 as drivers pushed through a dense fog bank that had settled over southern Tulare County. According to state traffic officials, a 59-vehicle collision unfolded near the unincorporated community of Earlimart, clogging both directions of the 99 with wrecked cars and trucks and forcing a full closure of the corridor on a busy Saturday morning. The crash zone stretched across multiple lanes near the Kern County line, where a 59-vehicle pileup effectively turned the freeway into a demolition zone.
Witness accounts and early reports describe a scene where drivers suddenly plunged into a gray wall and had almost no time to brake before slamming into stopped traffic. A 59-car tangle of sedans, pickups, and big rigs stacked up on the Highway as the fog thickened, with some vehicles pushed under trailers and others spun sideways across lanes near Tulare County’s southern edge. Video from the aftermath shows the 59-car wreck stretching toward the Kern County line, a visual that matches what officials later confirmed about the crash footprint along the 99 corridor.
Rescuers pick through wreckage as injuries mount
Once the first calls came in, California Highway Patrol officers and the Tulare County Fire Department raced to the scene, navigating the same heavy fog that had caught drivers off guard. Responders reported finding Vehicles turned over and up on each other, under each other, with some cars wedged so tightly that crews had to carefully peel them apart to reach trapped occupants. Ten people were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries after 59 vehicles were involved in the pile-up on California’s Highway 99, a tally that underscored how lucky it was that no deaths were immediately reported in the 59-car crash…