Five people died on a stretch of highway the National Weather Service had flagged eight hours earlier.
On February 17, wind-blown dust erased visibility on Interstate 25 south of Pueblo and turned a Tuesday morning commute into a chain-reaction pileup involving 36 vehicles. Seven semis were among them. The Colorado Department of Transportation’s own policy calls for restricting high-profile vehicles when gusts hit 60 mph, but no restriction was in place.
The first collision struck the northbound lanes at 10:02 AM near mile marker 92, just south of Pueblo Boulevard. Vehicles slammed into each other in near-zero visibility as dust swept across dry ground on both sides of the interstate. The wreckage spilled across the median into the southbound lanes, triggering a second crash. Every death and every injury came from the northbound pileup.
The Pueblo County Coroner identified the dead over two days. David Kirscht, 90, and his son Scott, 64, both of Walsenburg, died in the same vehicle. Mary Sue Thayer, 72, of Rye, died at the scene alongside Karen Ann Marsh, 66, of Pueblo.
Thomas Thayer, 65, of Rye — Mary Sue’s husband — was transported to Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs and died there. Paramedics took 28 others to two area hospitals. Seven sustained serious injuries and one arrived in critical condition.
The National Weather Service office in Pueblo had issued a High Wind Warning for the county at 1:25 that morning. The warning forecast gusts up to 65 mph with significant blowing dust through 6:00 PM. NWS meteorologist Klint Skelly said instruments recorded a 71 mph gust near the crash site around the time of the collision.
CDOT coordinates with Colorado State Patrol to determine when conditions require pulling semis and high-profile vehicles off the road. The department’s stated threshold is 60 mph gusts or sustained winds. Neither agency acted before the crash.
CSP Major Brian Lyons acknowledged the gap at a press conference that afternoon. By the time notifications arrived, he said, the crash had already happened. CDOT told Denver7 that message boards had been activated since Sunday alerting drivers to high winds, but no traffic restriction was issued for that segment.
Wilbur Thayer’s grandparents were Mary Sue and Thomas. He told Denver7 they were trapped beneath one of the semis. He wanted to know why the road stayed open, or why semis weren’t pulled off a highway where dangerous winds were forecast hours in advance.
A driver who narrowly avoided the pileup told KRDO the dust hit without warning. Visibility was clear, she said, and then instantly it was dirt and dark.
More than 50 first responders reached the scene. They came from 23 agencies across the region. School buses from Pueblo District 60 carried the uninjured to a reunification site at Pueblo South High School. Northbound I-25 stayed closed nearly 14 hours.
The next morning, CDOT issued high wind restrictions for I-25 from the New Mexico state line to Monument. CSP’s Vehicular Crimes Unit is still investigating.
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