Morning traffic, mud don’t mix

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- Mud oozed onto Irvine’s Main Street early Tuesday, causing

several cars to spin out of control -- one of which careened into a

parked fire engine.

The street, which was buried under a four-inch layer of mud, was close by

Irvine police from 6:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Morning commuter traffic was snarled while Caltrans cleanup crews

shoveled and swept the mud into storm drains.

A Caltrans official said a clogged sprinkler at a Costa Mesa construction

site on the Costa Mesa Freeway, which passes over Main Street, saturated

the area with recycled water overnight, creating the muddy mess.

“It was a fiasco,” said Mike Smith, who was part of the Caltrans crew

that cleaned up the mess. “There were cars sliding everywhere.”

The road construction is part of a Caltrans, county and multi-city

highway improvement project designed to untangle what the Federal Highway

Authorities identified as one of the nation’s busiest freeway

interchanges, where the Costa Mesa and San Diego freeways meet.

Soon after 6 a.m., when the slide occurred, four cars skidded and slid in

the mud, crashing into trees, curbs and a fire engine.

“It was dark and I couldn’t see the mud,” said Elias Sigada Moran, 54,

who crashed his Nissan into a tree near Sports Club Irvine, where he

works. “I tried to brake and just spun and spun and spun.”

Moran said he felt slight back pains after the accident. The impact left

a dent on the right side of his car.

Caltrans officials said one other driver reported minor injuries.

The Irvine Fire Department took its Engine 28 off duty for repairs, a

department spokesman said.