It took me close to 2 hours to go from Valencia to Northridge on Saturday. My advice is to avoid Magic Mountain, San Fernando, Lyos, and The Old Rd. altogether. I took 118 WEST to Moorpark, 23N to Fillmore, and 126E to come home. Very smooth.

I used to drive that route twice a day,until i retried three years ago.Iv'e driven through that tunnel several times.Why can't Caltrans do some things to make it a bit safer,such as installing some kind of lighting in that tunnel.Some things like that could go a long way in helping.

I was caught, after getting
on Freeway at Rye Canyon.This was at 9:00 am
Saturday Morning. This was my fault for not turning on
my radio to a news station.
I was on Freeway 2 Hours, till I was able to get off at Lyons. This crash happened at 10:41 Friday night.Why was the Freeway not closed by CHP, around 1:00am in morning?. During the time I was caught on Freeway, there was not one CHP to be seen, and they could have been taking people off the Freeway on the on ramps. This would be a good question to ask the CHP, where were they between the Hours of Midnight and 6:00am Saturday morning. Again I admit it was my fault,that I was there. Thankyou.

Yes, I was caught up in the mess and what usually takes me 10 mins. took me nearly an hour to reach Newhall from Sylmar. My suggestion is for all small vehicles to stay out of the truck lanes and tunnels entirely. I see how small vehicles cut in front of big rigs. No, I am not a truck driver but this may avoid situations like what happened and it may not have been a small vehicle that caused this but who knows. Those that cause accidents usually don't get hurt.

Took 5 1/2 round trip from Valencia to Pasadena and back. Wasn't so bad going North on the way back through, just about 30-45 minutes to Sierra Hwy exit on 14 then weaving through Soledad Canyon Rd which wasn't too backed up at the time.
Going South, however, good luck. The Old Road is just that. It isn't meant to carry 250,000 cars per day. I bet those residents are just ecstatic about this detour. If you have to go south, don't. As far as going through Fillmore and then back down and West to the 405, why even try that? It'll cost you an extra 1 1/2 hours just to sit in 405 traffic. Call in sick is my advice tomorrow.

On saturday my family had to go to a party in Palm Dale and we were comming from Winnetka. All 4 of us piled into the car. Almost the whole way it was stop and go, and that made me sick. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get from Rinaldi to the 14. When we passed by the accident we could see all the smoke and when we came back about 5 hours later it was still smoking. It was scary! But the trafic was awful and we all felt like going crazy :].

My 4 yr old daughter and I were at the front of the line when CHP stopped traffic on the 5 fwy Friday night. We heard the explosions and saw the fire as it grew. My brave little girl had to urinate on the side of the freeway at 2:30am in the rain. She never complained, just wanted to pray for everyone involved in the accident. After about 4 hours, we were able to turn around and drive the opposite way on the sloulder for about 1/4 mile where the center divider had been opened for us to cross onto the right side of the freeway. We got off at the next exit (Calgrove) and it took another 1 1/2 hours to get home (Sunland).

Not looking forward to this struggle tomorrow morning. Going to bed early, then waking up early to tackle. God Speed to us all!!!

I'll be doing the commute tomorrow too. I'm really not looking forward to it. I'm actually considering doing public transit even just because it'll be so bad.

This type of nightmare is exactly why I dont live in Valencia any more. I lived through the 94 earthquake, and no thank you. Never again do I want to deal with such a commuting nightmare. Good luck everyone. With the millions moving there and beyond, its only going to get worse. One way in and one way out.. hmmm.. cant be good.

The whole situation is a gut check for how well our community deals with disasters. People always comment about the "Big One" and this, sadly, was a dress rehearsal for the first-responders.

While there are sure to be questions and concerns about why the accident did happen and what could have been done to prevent it, kudos to CALTRANS, CHP, LA Fire and all the other groups for working together and for getting parts of the road opened before Tuesday. Let's just hope people maintain their cool tomorrow morning... It's going to be a long day for all.

I hope our state and local leaders push for an alternative freeway for Antelope Valley residents. That would help ease congestion in the Newhall pass.

Took us 3 1/2 hours to get from Pasadena to Santa Clarita yesterday. Good luck! We took Balboa in and were on that road for 1 hour, 45 minutes.

I'll be making a 2-minute commute from my bedroom to my home office.

I got on the N. 5 Fwy @ Rinaldi @ 4am...From there to Canyon Country it took me 4 hrs to get home. I arrived at 8am!! People were parked on the side of the Fwy sleeping...and The Denny's, Mcdonalds and gas stations were chaos!! Im just happy I got home safe as well as others and pray for the families of those who were hurt and killed in this terrible accident.
God Bless us all :-)

Left 1/2 hour earlier this morning at 4 a.m. Breezed right through. The light fog was what slowed traffic down.

No trouble with traffic at all. left at 4:30 a.m and the road was wide open. I suggest to leave a bit early to all to avoid any possible backups due to lookie loos (never seen anything burnt before, come to my house and watch my wife cook!)

I was caught up on Friday night at 12AM, ugly sight, was from 12AM to 3AM and barely moved from Balboa to Sierra HWY on San fernando road....Turned around and stayed in the San fernando valley, motorists were falling asleep on the wheel

Came over Little Tujunga on Sunday with no traffic until I hit San Fernando Rd. Monday morning at 5am, I5 is wide open in both directions.

All weekend though, traffic in the Valencia are was a mess. Where were CHP or LASD officers directing traffic? This would have minimized the chaos.

I attempted to use the Old Road last night (Sun.) to go into the San Fernando Valley, big mistake. There was a CHP directing traffic and the traffic wasn't moving at all, I turned around and went home. Working from my home office today, although I plan on driving in on Tuesday. I expect Tuesday to be a nightmare since everyone who took the trains on Monday will be back on the road once they find out the 5 is open again.

I live in Santa Clarita, close to Copperhill & Haskell. I work in Woodland Hills and my commute was decent considering. I lft S.Clarita at 5:00 am and got to Woodland Hills at 6:44 am. I drove only streets. Bouquet Cyn to San Fernando, S.Fernando to Sierra to Foothill to Balboa, to Devonshire all the way to Ventura Blvd! Good luck.

The drive was a piece of cake this morning actually. It was almost like a Friday commute. Everyone was scared off at how bad it would be. Tomorrow will be much worse I'm sure now that everyone had a chance to see that it wasn't as bad as expected. I'm just glad they've got the 5 open again.

After listening to the radio this morning to hear that traffic on the I-5 has been restored to normal, we stepped out on our front porch to read your hilarious headline: "The nightmare begins". Here's one for tomorrow: "Dewey Defeats Truman".

It took me 2.5 hrs friday night to get from Rinaldi to Roxford from the 405. Traffic was going smooth till around 11:45pm and then it became a suddon stop and stayed that way till 2;30am. I had no idea what had happened and was a little anoyed because i was soo close to home. What normally takes 5 min took me 2.5 hrs it was horrible!!! But i really do feel that the CHP could of a done a better job in managing traffic that night, People didnt know where to go when they got off the Roxford exit and every one was trying to cut each other off it was really bad. Maybe next time the CHP will have a better plan on helping traffic get around.

Where is the more than ten year old plan that to extend the highway 27 from Chatsworth north to the Castaic Junction? We need to have such a 2nd access to south other than the Newhall Pass.

i live in north carolina
my daddy drives a rig ang goes this route.
we cannot get in touch with him.
how can i get more imfo
on this accident?
do you have any names yet?

When will Hwy 2 be finished? Once this happens the 14 will get little traffic, reducing the 5 + 405.

I live in a Newhall neighborhood off of the Old Road. Whenever the freeway backs up, all the commuters want to take the Old Road instead. Of course, that was backed up too. What's bad is that trying to get out of our neighborhood or even back in it is a nightmare because of all of the cars backing up The Old Road directly in front of our neighborhood! We live here; we have to deal with this traffic mess on a daily basis when the south 5 freeway backs up! Consider yourself lucky you only had to deal with it one or two days.

I live in a Newhall neighborhood off of the Old Road. Whenever the freeway backs up, all the commuters want to take the Old Road instead. Of course, that was backed up too. What's bad is that trying to get out of our neighborhood or even back in it is a nightmare because of all of the cars backing up The Old Road directly in front of our neighborhood! We live here; we have to deal with this traffic mess on a daily basis when the south 5 freeway backs up! Consider yourself lucky you only had to deal with it one or two days.

I had a booty call on Sunday afternoon, I honestly thought I wasn't going to make it. Ended up taking Sierra Highway to the 14 and then to the 5, not too bad, not bad at all. It took me a little over an hour to get to LA and pick up this chick I've been banging the past couple of years. Old Road and San Fernando Road looked like hell on my way back.