Interstate pile-up 911 tapes released

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) - WAVY.com obtained the 911 tapes from the 50 car pile-up on Interstate 64 Wednesday morning. The crash happened during near whiteout conditions, sent seven people to the hospital and backed up traffic for nearly five hours.

State police tell WAVY.com they received more than 500 calls about those accidents and all of them within a very short amount of time. WAVY.com captured some exclusive video of the massive pile-up on Westbound I-64, near Williamsburg.

Newport News firefighters had to walk the mile-long wreck, going car to car to check on each person. The interstate nightmare even made it onto YouTube. It took crews hours to finally clear all of the vehicles and document everything for a final report.

It was mid-afternoon before Westbound lanes opened again. As you can imagine, 911 calls came fast: "The westbound traffic is stopped at the second Lee Hall exit and then people are coming up over the hill of the overpass and slamming into each other. So it sounds like it's going to be a multiple, multiple vehicle crash. Yeah, I have a huge list and it's growing," said one caller, seconds after the chain reaction began.

Troopers have three days to file their reports and it's likely state police won't have any final stats on the accident for some time.

Click here to listen to the 911 calls.