“Amazingly enough, the only injuries from this seven-vehicle crash were confined to the Suburban,” Graves said.

Traffic was backed up at milepost 299 for hours after the collision. The Arizona Red Cross responded to hand out water to drivers who had to wait in temperatures of about 110 degrees. The Arizona Department of Transportation also shut down southbound I-17 near Stoneman Lake Road to clear the crash and began redirecting traffic onto State Route 89A.

Vehicles longer than 50 feet in length are prohibited on 89A, due to difficulty on the switchbacks, so officials said the alternate route was not accessible to commercial vehicles included in the backup.

However, by about 6:30 p.m., officials determined 89A had “reached capacity” and drivers were turned around and directed to take either State Route 89 through Chino Valley or take I-40 to Winslow and then take State Route 87 to go south, ADOT spokesman Tom Herrmann said.

Herrmann said one lane was reopened on I-17 at about 7:30 p.m., and the entire freeway was reopened at 10:30 p.m. Hermann said it was unclear how long it took for the backup to clear and for traffic to move freely again.