Video: Accidents shutdown major thoroughfares for hours

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SEATTLE - Investigators are looking into whether the bad weather played a role in two significant western Washington accidents Wednesday morning.

Fatal accident

A fatal car crash in Seattle was so violent it ripped the car in two pieces. The driver of the speeding car was killed when it crashed about 2:30 on Highway 99 south of the Aurora Bridge.

KING5 News reporter Jim Forman said the accident apparently occurred when the car hit the median.

Investigators are looking into whether the storm contributed to the accident.  There was a heavy downpour moving through the area at the time of the crash.

All southbound lanes from just south of the Aurora Bridge down to the Battery Street Tunnel were closed for just over six hours for the crash investigation.

Tanker truck collision

Further south, a double trailer tanker truck collision with a pickup truck shut down the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near exit 105 just north of the Olympia city limit.

KING5 News reporter Tim Robinson said the collision occurred at about 1 a.m.

A woman driving the pickup truck apparently hydroplaned on the wet road.

"(She) ended up hitting the jersey barrier to our left over here and then spun out and hit the other jersey barrier and then came back across all lanes and a semi ran into it (the pickup truck)," said Washington State Patrol Trooper Robert Turk.

KING

A double tanker trailer truck lies on its side after colliding with a pickup truck on Interstate 5 near Olympia, Wash. Nov. 12, 2008.

The crash ruptured a tank filled with buttermilk and officials estimate about 4,000 to 5,000 gallons of buttermilk spilled.

There was an environmental cleanup but some the buttermilk - diluted by rain - reached Capitol Lake.

"It (the rain) could just push it right through and dilute it so fast that it might not hurt or harm anything," said Andrea Unger of the state's Department of Ecology. "It will decompose but it will be so spread out that it won't hurt the small areas."

The woman driving the pickup truck suffered minor injuries.

Southbound lanes were closed for about four hours during the investigation and cleanup.