LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Interstate 15 is back open following a big weekend of traffic, especially for people traveling to Las Vegas from Southern California.
It's being described as a nightmare that you or someone you know may have been caught up in. People hit the road for vacation, not knowing that much of their trip would end on I-15 after a semi-truck carrying lithium batteries crashed between Baker and Barstow, prompting a nearly 48-hour shutdown.
I found Indhira Flowers and her family on TikTok. She tells me they left Southern California and were heading to Zion National Park in Utah.
"Total, it was 15 hours to Vegas. I have never experienced traffic like that in my life," she told me. "I am Type 1 diabetic and I was getting worried because there was no restaurants or fast food services on the road we were on."
People were stuck for hours. Another woman on Instagram told me that her dog died from heatstroke after going to the bathroom in the desert.
Jonathan Hardy, from Georgia, emailed our newsroom. He said he was driving back from Southern California to get to Las Vegas for a family reunion and there was no alert or notice about the crash. After sitting on I-15 for hours, they were rerouted to Interstate 40.
"At that point, we had been on the highway for almost 10 or 11 hours, something like that," Hardy explained. "We have small children, one who is autistic. Being on the road all day, we had to turn back. The experience was bad. We didn't have a lot of police presence, no one directing traffic."
A Las Vegas family also spoke to my colleague Tricia Kean. Stacy D'Alessandro told her they heard the news about the backup while they were at Disneyland in Anaheim. D'Alessandro, her daughter Gia, and some friends had to come up with a different route.
"It took us nine and a half hours but it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be."
WATCH: Families share their stories after being stuck on I-15 for hours
Kean also spoke to Phillip Bodjanac, who left Colorado and was passing through the Las Vegas area to visit his son Joshua in Los Angeles. He says by the time he came up on the scene near California, he says there were about 30 big rigs pulled over on the side and the interstate had closed.
"It was just kind of eerie to see the other side with no cards, you know, because it was closed," Bodjanac said. "You could really see the influence of the Las Vegas traffic."
Bodjanac told Ken that when he stopped for gas, he heard the horror stories of the ripple effect or people taking alternate routes.
"Cars had run out of gas. There was no food. The gas stations ran out of fuel because people who did need to get fueled up, just, you know, they consumed all the fuel because the gas stations didn't have enough fuel."
I reached out to the Nevada Department of Transportation who tells me if you are leaving Nevada, it's a good idea to check the 511 Transportation System. If you are driving in another state, it is useful to check their transportation department systems as well.
