LAKE DELTON — Divers from the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office are searching for the driver of a semi truck after the tractor trailer was found Sunday morning submerged in Mirror Lake.
A representative from the Wisconsin State Patrol DeForest Post said the semi went through the guardrail on the eastbound side of Interstate 90 at mile marker 91, plunging into the water below.
The weather today is a high in the low twenties with the chance of snow.
The damaged guardrail north of the Mirror Lake interstate bridge in Sauk County was discovered at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, according to a state patrol news release. Wheel tracks at the scene led from the right ditch and over a cliff into the lake, leading responders to the submerged tractor trailer unit.
At about 12:30 p.m. Sunday, the state patrol representative confirmed that crews were searching for at least one person. Lake Delton and Sauk County EMS are involved in the recovery efforts.
“At this point there are no signs of life and it is a recovery effort,” the news release stated.
Both eastbound lanes on I-90 were closed between exits 89 and 92 starting around noon so responders could pull the vehicle from the lake. The closure was estimated to last about five hours. In the meantime, traffic is being directed to take exit 89 onto state Highway 23 eastbound to U.S. Highway 12 south, leading back onto I-90/94.
Crews from the state Department of Natural Resources were on scene to handle the diesel spill, the release stated.
This isn’t the first time a semi has fallen from the interstate bridge into Mirror Lake. In January 2011, a semi traveling westbound drove through the median, crashed through a guardrail and plunged 107 feet, breaking through the lake’s ice. The driver, Peter G. Ramanand of Bronx, New York, was killed.
