I drove past it yesterday right about 3:05 p.m.
The fire was out at this point. I hope the driver is ok, cause if he was inside... well, now he's inside the freezer at the morgue.
When I got to Columbia, traffic was backed up onto the Wrightsville bridge.
Couple of comments, I know the police need to do an investigation into these types of incidents, however, the truck was on the shoulder, there's no reason I could see that the left hand lane of the east bound lanes couldn't have been opened.
Next, somebody should have had the forethought to encourage people to exit at 441, head down to 999 and continue to any of the various ways to get back on 30. I may know this, but I bet a lot of people don't.
Likewise, when they were forced off at the exit before the accident, having people disperse farther south of 462 or farther north onto 23 would have been good for those traveling east instead of herding everyone on 462. I've never understood why we do that when incidents on 30 happen, using 462 exclusively as the alternate makes a huge mess, since it can't handle even 1/2 the traffic 30 does, let alone all of it. In some other places I've been to, it's part of the procedure to run traffic in both sides of the street when things like this happen. It helps alleviate the backlogs, not a perfect solution, but a solution. Traffic in the "wrong" direction is diverted any way possible, and somehow it just works. For construction or other planned outages, the use pilot cars, a car that just runs back and forth all day long to keep everybody moving, albeit slower, but moving.

I really felt for the guys in big rigs behind it, they can't back up and sneak off the highway. Not that ordinary cars can legally, but they do it, trucks simply can't. Most of those guys run by the mile, so if they're sitting still, they're not getting paid.

In a case like this, perhaps the best course of action would have been for PennDOT to place a sign board prior to the Columbia exit warning drivers to get off on 441 and go either north or south to avoid the situation. Again, this takes time and people.

I travel 30 on a fairly regular basis and have to admit that the Traffax reports are usually pretty good. They'll often times tip me off to issues that could potentially affect my commute and I can make adjustments as needed.

Fire police aren't your personal tour guides. Get a GPS, a map, or use your own sense of direction. Their job is to close down the road. And it would be foolish to divert people off on 441. Then you will have 462 all messed up through Columbia, then that mess would mix with the other traffic at prospect road.