I’m a Valley Boy – Central Valley that is – through and through.
That means I know real fog. Not the stuff that rolls into San Francisco on little cat’s feet, but the monster SUV of fog – tule fog.
You respect the stuff and assume the worst. You drive as if your life depends on it because it does.
Chamber types don’t like to brag about it, but Manteca, is No. 2 or No. 3 on the horrendous list of the most dangerous places to drive in the Central Valley when Mother Nature decides to generate clouds from the moist ground. The reason is simple. Before there was a Manteca, this was a sandy plain on the edge of the Delta. That makes it an ideal breeding ground for tule fog.
People need to back off and slow down. Zero visibility fog is as stress-free as driving in a white out and not knowing where the road ends and a 100-foot cliff begins.
A decade ago we were lucky when Manteca suffered a major pile-up involving almost 40 vehicles in a mid-morning chain reaction. No one was killed. The damages in crumpled autos and health care costs not to mention emergency services were estimated at the time as having the potential to exceed $500,000. That’s on the cheap side if you’ve ever had a simple fender bender repaired and multiplied that amount by 40.
So how does one predict the density of tule fog and where it will pop up? You can’t.
Trying to find the 10th of 18 accidents that occurred that Monday 10 years ago while driving eastbound on Yosemite Avenue from Powers Avenue to Highway 99 was surreal. You couldn’t see more than a car length ahead. Traffic signals were invisible until you were on top of them. Just an hour earlier the visibility was nearly a mile in the very same spots.
Things got a little better on southbound Highway 99 and then on the Highway 120 Bypass. By the time one reached Main and Yosemite Avenue, the sun was shining brightly. But heading east on Yosemite the street was again smothered with fog in just two blocks’ distance.
Folks who have lived here for years try to impress newcomers about the severity of the fog problem. If they’re from the Bay Area, they scoff at your suggestions it is worse than on the west side of Altamont Pass.
If they’re from any other place, they have no idea what real fog is all about.
Back in 1990 the Central Valley was plagued with 32 consecutive days of not seeing the sun.
It was crazy. You could drive up to the 1,000-foot elevation and bask in 72-degree warmth but below that the valley was a virtual refrigerator with temps rarely fluctuating much from the 45-degree mark. It was enough to convince you never to move to Alaska.
In February of 1990, there were two triple fatality accidents on Highway 65 just south of Lincoln in Placer County. One involved two vehicles traveling way too fast in heavy fog as they slammed into the rear of a semi-truck moving at 35 mph in zero visibility. The other involved a maniac who passed in zero visibility. Both accidents happened under cloak of darkness mixed with pea soup fog.
Three months earlier, Lincoln Airport had two fatal crashes of single engine planes trying to make emergency landings in heavy fog. One happened on Thanksgiving Day in 1989 when a single engine plane crashed approaching from the south. The wreckage was found the next day. The pilot was dead. Three days later, Lincoln Police got a call of another wreck. They thought it was the same site, but when they went to investigate, another plane had crashed coming from the north killing two more people.
Driving fast in tule fog is in the same category as playing Russian roulette.
It’s not worth the risk.
That means I know real fog. Not the stuff that rolls into San Francisco on little cat’s feet, but the monster SUV of fog – tule fog.
You respect the stuff and assume the worst. You drive as if your life depends on it because it does.
Chamber types don’t like to brag about it, but Manteca, is No. 2 or No. 3 on the horrendous list of the most dangerous places to drive in the Central Valley when Mother Nature decides to generate clouds from the moist ground. The reason is simple. Before there was a Manteca, this was a sandy plain on the edge of the Delta. That makes it an ideal breeding ground for tule fog.
People need to back off and slow down. Zero visibility fog is as stress-free as driving in a white out and not knowing where the road ends and a 100-foot cliff begins.
A decade ago we were lucky when Manteca suffered a major pile-up involving almost 40 vehicles in a mid-morning chain reaction. No one was killed. The damages in crumpled autos and health care costs not to mention emergency services were estimated at the time as having the potential to exceed $500,000. That’s on the cheap side if you’ve ever had a simple fender bender repaired and multiplied that amount by 40.
So how does one predict the density of tule fog and where it will pop up? You can’t.
Trying to find the 10th of 18 accidents that occurred that Monday 10 years ago while driving eastbound on Yosemite Avenue from Powers Avenue to Highway 99 was surreal. You couldn’t see more than a car length ahead. Traffic signals were invisible until you were on top of them. Just an hour earlier the visibility was nearly a mile in the very same spots.
Things got a little better on southbound Highway 99 and then on the Highway 120 Bypass. By the time one reached Main and Yosemite Avenue, the sun was shining brightly. But heading east on Yosemite the street was again smothered with fog in just two blocks’ distance.
Folks who have lived here for years try to impress newcomers about the severity of the fog problem. If they’re from the Bay Area, they scoff at your suggestions it is worse than on the west side of Altamont Pass.
If they’re from any other place, they have no idea what real fog is all about.
Back in 1990 the Central Valley was plagued with 32 consecutive days of not seeing the sun.
It was crazy. You could drive up to the 1,000-foot elevation and bask in 72-degree warmth but below that the valley was a virtual refrigerator with temps rarely fluctuating much from the 45-degree mark. It was enough to convince you never to move to Alaska.
In February of 1990, there were two triple fatality accidents on Highway 65 just south of Lincoln in Placer County. One involved two vehicles traveling way too fast in heavy fog as they slammed into the rear of a semi-truck moving at 35 mph in zero visibility. The other involved a maniac who passed in zero visibility. Both accidents happened under cloak of darkness mixed with pea soup fog.
Three months earlier, Lincoln Airport had two fatal crashes of single engine planes trying to make emergency landings in heavy fog. One happened on Thanksgiving Day in 1989 when a single engine plane crashed approaching from the south. The wreckage was found the next day. The pilot was dead. Three days later, Lincoln Police got a call of another wreck. They thought it was the same site, but when they went to investigate, another plane had crashed coming from the north killing two more people.
Driving fast in tule fog is in the same category as playing Russian roulette.
It’s not worth the risk.
