CSP says it was “too late” implementing chain laws on I-70, leading to more than a dozen stuck semi trucks 

Interstate 70 was shut down for several hours on Monday after multiple tractor trailers were allowed to pass by the chain station without chaining up. 

The closure of eastbound I-70 through Vail Pass in Colorado was first announced just before 1:30 p.m. on December 30th, about 30 minutes after heavy snow began falling in the area. The snow also forced the closure of Highway 24, a detour around Vail Pass, between 3 and 5 p.m. 

According to Vail Daily, more than a dozen commercial vehicles were allowed to pass the chain station without chaining up before chain laws were finally implemented. By then, multiple semi trucks were already struggling to make it up the incline. 

“It’s just a sheet of ice up there, multiple spun-out vehicles,” Sergeant Patrick Rice with Colorado State Patrol said at the time. 

Rice explained that the CSP is mainly responsible for notifying the Colorado Department of Transportation that chain laws should go into effect, but admitted that this time CSP was “behind the ball on getting the chain law set in place, and it’s too late, and at that point (tractor-trailers) are already on the hill.”

“At about 1:05 p.m. I started seeing all the trucks that couldn’t get up the hill,” said Jonathan Levine, who drives for a local private car service.  “So I radioed my other driver Doug Eby and told him to go around on Highway 24 at Minturn. He barely made it through.”

I-70 was reopened on Monday evening, just before 5 p.m. No injuries or serious crashes were reported.