Highway reopened after Illinois dust storm crash kills 6

The crash on Monday injured dozens more people and closed the north and southbound lanes of Interstate 55 north of St. Louis, police said. Police reopened the highway early Tuesday morning. More than 70 passenger and commercial vehicles piled up in a sprawling mess along a roughly two-mile stretch of the highway. Drivers were blinded after winds blew dust off nearby farm fields, resulting in the disastrous scene.

This all happened because of the wind? The National Weather Service said wind speeds were between 35 and 45 miles per hour. Farmers had been tilling their fields and the area is quite flat without trees, said meteorologist Chuck Schaffer. Witnesses said it was impossible to see, and police likened it to whiteout conditions during snowstorms.

Dig deeper: Read Kim Henderson’s report from the WORLD archives about cleaning up after a deadly storm in the heartland.