PORTLAND — A series of car crashes during a rainy morning on Interstate 295 Friday led to intermittent traffic jams on the busy transportation corridor.
The most recent crash involved a single car headed north in Brunswick.
Rescue workers transported one person from the scene.
A northbound car lost control at the Route 1 exit ramp at about 10:30 a.m., police said. Firefighters used extrication tools to get the person out.
The crash was one of several on I-295 as heavy rain left little room for driving errors.
In Portland, a northbound car apparently hit a cement block in the roadway on Tukey’s Bridge at 8:54 a.m., according to Maine State Police.
Nobody was hurt but the crash created major traffic delays in the north end of Portland.
Earlier Friday morning, southbound traffic on I-295 was delayed by three separate crashes in succession in Falmouth, Cumberland and Freeport, state police said.
The Falmouth crash happened just after 7 a.m. at Mile 11, blocking one lane of traffic and forcing cars to merge.
The second accident happened at Mile 13 in Cumberland when a pickup truck that was driving too fast for the rainy conditions lost control and hit a guardrail, backing up traffic into Yarmouth, police said.
A third crash, which was minor, happened in Freeport, probably as a result of traffic congestion caused by the first two crashes, police said.
“It was a mess over there,” said state Trooper Anthony Keim, who was patrolling the Maine Turnpike and drove over to assist other troopers on I-295.
Police said the southbound crashes during the morning commute resulted in no serious injuries.
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