Slick roads caused by storm leads to crashes, traffic jams

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- The Bay Area storms created hazards for drivers. Slick roads led to dozens of spin-out's and collisions.

Drivers on San Jose's far west side thought the worst of the storm was over, but they forgot what to do when the traffic signals lose power.

Two vehicles collided when one didn't stop.

"These folks have been flying through here, 45, 50 miles an hour, and clearly we've already had one incident with multiple other near-misses," said San Jose fire Capt. Soren Coats. "Folks, you've got to slow down."

Power lines came down, apparently the result of gusty winds. A resident of Blaney Avenue saw sparks coming from a pole in his yard.

"Sparks came off, the power like flickered, but it never really went off, and it was windy at the time when that happened,"

Two people were injured when a minivan lost control on Blossom Hill Road, striking an on-coming SUV. It was raining hard just before the accident.

"Two were transported to local hospitals, and one in serious condition, one in moderate condition," San Jose fire Capt. Reggie Williams said. "An additional patient signed a refusal of care here on the scene and was not transported."

The driver, whose SUV was struck, was luckier than the people in the minivan.

"There's one person in the passenger side, which was the side that rammed into my car," said Colleen Bush, a San Jose resident. "He was trapped for a few minutes, and then the driver, he looked like he banged his head pretty good."

On the peninsula, the California Highway Patrol says the driver of a pick-up may have been driving too fast on the I-280 off-ramp at Farm Hill Road. The pick-up skidded, went down an embankment and caught on fire next to a Caltrans building. The driver escaped without injuries.