Thanksgiving Crash In Chicago

As millions of Americans hit the road or took to the skies to reach Thanksgiving Day destinations, a commuter train in suburban Chicago slammed into several vehicles caught in a traffic jam on a busy road Wednesday evening, starting a chain reaction that damaged more than a dozen cars and injured at least 16 people.

Three people were in critical condition, Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said. No one aboard the train was reported injured.

Cars were strewn about the area and other drivers were helping rescue people trapped inside as emergency crews arrived around 5 p.m. Two people had to be extricated from their vehicles, including a woman whose car caught fire after she was out, Marino said.

CBS News reports

The rail crossing where the accident happened cuts through a busy diagonal intersection, and a street sign beside the tracks reads: "Long crossing. Do not stop on the tracks."

CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago reports from the scene there is a mass of wreckage and metal that is difficult to tell was once cars.

Eye witness Van Jackson told WBBM that due to traffic, cars became sitting ducks on the train tracks. As the train approached, many jumped out of their cars and ran to avoid getting hit.

Elsewhere, other travelers were met with prospect of traffic jams, snowy highways and crowded airports and train stations.

"It's like a hurricane," said Martha Bittencourt, 54, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, describing the Miami airport as she waited for a flight to visit friends in Tennessee.

People who were accustomed to the Miami airport, however, said it wasn't bad. The holiday rush also started out more smoothly than expected at airports in Detroit, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul and the Hartford, Conn., area.

That will change when people head home again, said John Wallace, a spokesman at Hartford's Bradley International Airport.

"What's we're seeing is a staggered effect on the front end," he said. "And then, on the back end, everybody's got to get back for the beginning of the school week and the work week."

CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports that most flights left on time today, but were packed. Aflonsi and crew booked a 10 a.m. flight from New York to Miami to see how bad the travel day was.

The 10 a.m. flight was delayed until noon, and Alfonsi waited at the gate with the Gassner family.

"My husband and I started at 5:30, had the kids up at 6 and left the house at a quarter to 7 to get here for what we thought was a 9:30 flight," said Andrea Gassner, as her 2-year-old son was taking the terminal by storm. "We're trying to keep them both fed, keep the diapers changed. We're hoping we don't run out of diapers before we get to Miami!"

The Air Transport Association predicted 21.7 million people would fly on U.S. airlines from Nov. 19 to Nov. 29, slightly more than last year's record number.

AAA said more than 37 million people would travel by car at least 50 miles from home during the long holiday weekend. The association, citing a telephone survey, said the number of Thanksgiving travelers would be up 0.8 percent from last year.

"I'm glad gas is not $3 anymore," Kate Kehoe said as she filled her tank in Ann Arbor, Mich., for a trip of about 55 miles to Flint.

Kehoe was not worried about the snow that was falling across the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley. The snow also caused no problems at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports, which expected nearly 2 million passengers during the holiday weekend.

Alfonsi reports that the relative calm of this record-breaking travel day didn't start that way. On I-95, outside Washington, D.C., a tanker truck exploded, turning one of the busiest roads, on the busiest travel day into a parking lot.

The Maryland State Highway Administration says the final two southbound lanes at the scene of the tanker truck explosion re-opened around 1:30.

The trouble began around 4:30 this morning, when the rig with nearly nine-thousand gallons of gas caught fire. Boyor Chew, who was behind the wheel, says he realized a back wheel was on fire, but no one would let him move over to the right. When he finally made it to the shoulder, he ran for it before the compartments blew up one at a time.

But numerous traffic accidents were blamed on the snow in Indiana. No serious injuries were reported.

"It doesn't matter if you have a half-inch of snow, people can slide on it, the first snow of the year," said forecaster Bill Simpson in Taunton, Mass.

Fog was the culprit in Idaho, stranding travelers in Boise.

Elsewhere in the West, "it's just beautiful traveling weather," Nancy Daniels said during a break at a truck stop in Sterling, Colo., as she and her family drove to Minnesota for "a big ol' family reunion."