It was supposed to be like any other morning, but October 11, 2002 was not going to be like any other in memory.
The day started much like this one in that fog was formed in the early morning hours. By the time the sun rose at 7 a.m., much of eastern Wisconsin was enveloped in its shroud. On I-43 near Cedar Grove, the usual morning commute was underway, but an unusually dense wall of fog had set in along the southern reaches of Sheboygan County. Motorists strained to see ahead, but the morning drive wasn’t about to slow down…at least not by choice. Nobody would have chosen what came next.
At 7:19 a.m., somewhere along a gentle curve two vehicles hit each other. Nobody could see it, and as the morning commute continued down the highway at highway speeds, one after another, trucks…cars, 51 vehicles in all…became part of the worst accident in Wisconsin history.
Witnesses nearby could hear the repeated thumps as each vehicle encountered the burning wreckage that resulted. The Wisconsin State Patrol said that by the time traffic came to a stop in the southbound lanes that pileup would take ten lives and injured 36 others, seven critically, one seriously, and others with minor injuries. And responding to that accident used up two-thirds of the Cedar Grove Volunteer Fire Department’s annual budget.
I was supposed to be in that group. I had a conference to attend near Madison and would have left shortly after 7 a.m. to go there via Milwaukee. But I decided instead to enjoy the fall colors on the back roads. What I saw as I headed west at about 7:30 from Cedar Grove on Highway “D” was lots of fog, and I was pulling over every few minutes for emergency vehicles heading east. I likely passed a mile away from where another victim, just 14 years old, lost her life in another fog-bound crash on county roads. The emergency vehicles just kept coming even as I passed through Horicon nearly 50 miles from I-43.
By then the reports on radio informed me of what had happened. Like many I wondered if anyone I knew personally was involved (nobody was). What I didn’t know is that my family back home was wondering the same thing. Without a cell phone at that time, I would only know of their concern when I arrived at my conference. I was supposed to be on I-43 at that time. When I checked in, I had the message to call home, and I let my family know I was OK. By the time I got back home that evening, the sight and sounds of hovering helicopters nearby reminded me that for many others, things wouldn’t be OK again.
20 years after the accident, little remains at the site save for some crosses on top of the hillside on the west side of I-43 at the scene a mile south of Cedar Grove. And on Sauk Trail Road, sharing a small pull-off with a State Historical Marker commemorating the Dutch settlers who survived their own crash in the wreck of the ship “Phoenix”, sits another marker. This one commemorates the crash on October 11, 2002 that took the lives of David Arendt, Daniel Balint and his son William, Eric Behling, Nadine Boltz, Richard Doll, Allen Domke, Daniel Janquart, Rachel Matt and Kenneth Rauwerdink, and also Mallory Rinn who died at the same time a few miles away. On Monday, the memorial was accompanied by flowers, and a pumpkin, left by family remembering what was lost 20 years ago.
A Monument Lists the Names of Those Lost on October 11, 2002 Near Cedar Grove. Photo by Jon DeMaster
