The highway is open again. Hundreds of feet of damaged paving have been replaced, the seventy cars and trucks have been towed away, the injured are in hospitals, and the dead are being remembered with shock and sorrow.
Lives of victims and their loved ones will be forever changed, and there is little comfort for the survivors in being able to say, “It was all the fault of the Transportation Department, the National Weather Service, the State Highway Patrol, the ‘Fish and Wildlife’ workers who were conducting a ‘controlled burn’ less than a mile away, or the seventy other drivers who continued at high speed past the warning signs and into the ‘wall’ of smoke and fog.”
On the Tuesday afternoon before the disaster, highway workers had put up reflective orange signs to warn motorists of the dangers of smoke and fog.
Early Wednesday morning there was an unexpected shift in the wind, bringing thick smoke over the highway. At the same time, fog rolled in, fog such as is a frequent danger on that low-lying stretch of road, and the combination of smoke and fog in the pre-dawn darkness just wiped out visibility.
Driving past the warning signs at interstate speed of 70 (or above!), there was no time to react and nothing to see. They heard crashes and screams and, in many cases, felt an impact they could not see. One driver said that the first thing he could see was the hood of his own car “folding up” in front of him.
The first stunned shock gave way to terror as crashes continued on the highway and became panic as a red glow appeared as cars and trucks began burning, and all who could escape frantically tried to get away—far away from the many dangers that surrounded them.
It was such a familiar road, that highway they drove daily to work, so to cope with the boredom they talked on cell phones, listened to radios or to favorite music—anything to break the monotony!
It is broken now; no one who was involved in that morning’s disaster will ever drive that road again without a shudder. Such a tragedy in the early morning hours of what promised to be a “perfectly normal day” was incomprehensible to the dazed victims. Certainly, not one of them started out that morning with the thought that, “Today I’ll be in a horrible accident. My car will be wrecked, and I may die!”
Of course, there is always the chance of something happening on a high-speed highway, but we give it little room in our thoughts. If we only realized the dangers around us, really thought that this day this very ordinary day—could well be our last day of life on earth, wouldn’t we stop a few minutes before rushing out the door and off to the day’s work? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to pause for a moment and to think that there might be no return trip?
We are not asking, “Have you made your peace with God?” You can’t! But God, through the death of Christ on the cross, has forever accepted that tremendous sacrifice for sin. It is done, finished, perfect and complete in every way. Now you can, you must accept the gift, must receive the Lord Jesus and the salvation He offers for yourself, must “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” to be saved. The promise is sure.
Then whatever comes on your road today, you will know that all is well with your never-dying soul and a glorious future is before you when you leave this earth for one that is “far better”! What confidence that gives, no matter what “happens.”