Series of crashes fatal on I-40 west

1 person dies in wrecks involving big rigs, passenger vehicles

Crashes involving eight vehicles Wednesday morning killed at least one person, halting traffic along Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Memphis as crews took hours to clear the roads, authorities said.

The westbound lanes of I-40 were closed after the crashes, which happened around 7:45 a.m. just east of Forrest City in St. Francis County, according to the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

The agency said the collisions involved four commercial trucks and four other vehicles.

Arkansas State Police spokesman Cpl. Liz Chapman confirmed that at least one person was killed. A report of the crashes also listed injuries.

It wasn’t immediately known what caused the wrecks or the number of people hurt.

“It could be anything,” said Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Transportation Department.

The state police agency was investigating the crashes Wednesday.

The Transportation Department said it cleared debris and damaged vehicles from the westbound lanes around noon, more than four hours after the wrecks.

Straessle said Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be the busiest days for commercial trucks along the mainly rural interstate corridor connecting Little Rock to Memphis. Some 40,000 vehicles pass through daily, and about half are commercial trucks.

“We just see an enormous uptick in the number of trucks that come through,” Straessle said.

The eastbound lanes remained open, and authorities detoured westward traffic around the crash using U.S. 70.

Wednesday’s wrecks occurred weeks after a similar streak of crashes in St. Francis County in March, when three people were killed in a fiery wreck that took several hours to clear.