A motorist was hurt and taken to the hospital after their vehicle rolled over several times on Highway 14, as thousands of commuters made their way through a soggy Santa Clarita Valley and its rain-slicked roadways.
The crash happened about 7:45 a.m. in the northbound lanes of Highway 14 at Newhall Avenue.
“This call was for a vehicle that rolled over several times,” Brian Stevens, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.
Paramedics got to the scene a couple of minutes before 8 a.m., he said.
Firefighters alerted to the possibility the motorist became trapped in the vehicle found the motorist outside of the vehicle, not trapped.
The crash led to subsequent collisions at the same location, none of them serious or resulting in injury.
A check with both the California Highway Patrol and the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station revealed a slightly higher number of traffic collisions but, at the same time, a regular number of crashes for a rainy day.
“There’s been a couple of traffic collisions, but nothing out of the ordinary,” Lt. Doug Mohrhoff with the SCV Sheriff’s Station said.
“It’s typical rain stuff,” he said, noting a transformer had blown.
It was the same story of SCV highways — typical for a rainy day, more crashes than normally seen day to day.
“Our call volume is up a tad,” CHP Officer Josh Greengard shared in an email Thursday morning. “We have received a total of 19, 911 calls for traffic collision since the day began at (12:01 a.m.)”
To put that in retrospect, he explained, The CHP Newhall Station received 7, 911 calls last Thursday for traffic collisions.
Southern California Edison work crews responded to the incident on Keaton Street, near Meadowcreek Road.
“It was completely in flames,” said a woman who lives near the transformer.
The fire, burning in the rain, burned itself out quickly.
Other crashes prompting a response by emergency crews occurred at Magic Mountain Parkway and McBean Parkway shortly before 11 a.m., on Highway 14 at Sand Canyon and on San Francisquito Canyon Road.
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With files from Lorena Mejia.