All lanes of westbound I-4 near Par Street are back open after being closed for more than seven hours following a fiery tractor-trailer crash.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a truck hauling furniture from Georgia began to hydroplane in the rain just before midnight as it traveled west on I-4 near the Fairbanks curve. The driver lost control and hit the center concrete barriers, sending pieces from the truck and the barriers into the eastbound lanes.
The driver, 43-year-old Jerome Adams Jr., from Pooler, Georgia, managed to get out of the truck before it caught fire.
Several cars tried to go around the tractor-trailer but got stuck in the mud off the road and had to be towed away. A second crash took place in the eastbound lanes, where a driver hit a road ranger vehicle that was parked at the original crash site.
No injuries have been reported.
The semi was loaded onto a flatbed truck and hauled away from the crash site just before 6 a.m.
Crews began cleaning the roadway, sweeping and washing away debris.
Another team of emergency management professionals worked on the fuel spill.
Troopers said the crash remains under investigation. Charges are pending.