SMOKEY BEAR ROAD (Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 6:35 p.m.)—At 6:15 p.m. California Highway Patrol reported that all lanes were clear and open. Traffic is expected to return to normal once congestion clears.

SMOKEY BEAR ROAD (Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 5:32 p.m.)—Commuters coming home from Valencia and Los Angeles will have a longer-than-normal drive home tonight. Traffic is snarled on northbound I-5 at Smokey Bear Road due to a jack-knifed big rig that spilled lemons across all lanes at about 4 p.m.. Currently, only the first two inside lanes are open at Smokey Bear Road with all other lanes shut down for an unknown duration for clean-up of the spilled produce. Mountain Communities residents have called the newspaper office reporting they are stuck in gridlocked traffic as far back as Pyramid Lake and have not moved far for over half an hour.

Commuters coming from further south may choose to take the SR-14 north through Lancaster to the Highway 138 west and back to the I-5 north to avoid the incident.

All southbound lanes are open.

This is part of the June 18, 2010 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you.