FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- Cars, trucks and 18-wheelers were stranded on Interstate 95 on Monday night with no help in sight.
Hundreds of cars were left at a standstill for hours, forcing families to sleep in their cars overnight. Many lost gas and were left praying for help.
"It was crazy. Couldn't believe that people were stuck there that long. I ain't seen nothing like it and I've been driving a wrecker almost 30 years or so," Tracy Jarman, the manager of Capital Garage Towing, said.
Jarman said that at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday, he got the call from the Virginia Department of Transportation requesting help. His company dispatched four rollbacks, a large wrecker and a medium unit to help stranded drivers.
However, getting to the stranded drivers wasn't easy.
"My rollbacks got stuck in the traffic at the 98 and were able to get a state trooper to escort them up to the 104 to get off and cut around to Route One to them," Jarman.
Virginia State Police had more than 30 troopers and supervisors working through Monday night and into Tuesday said the gridlock on I-95 was made more difficult to clear because of the number of disabled cars and big rigs that were stuck.
The demand for tow trucks was already high due to the other disabled cars on secondary roads across the area.
Jarman is well-aware of how taxing the process of clearing the stretch of more than 40 miles is.
"I'm just glad we were able to send people up to get them home and hopefully, they're safe and can get warm," Jarman said. "I've worked tons of accidents but nothing like this. It's something like out of the Midwest."
Interstate 95 officially opened both southbound and northbound lanes on Tuesday night.
