Emergency crews responded to a crash on the New York State Thruway on Tuesday morning after a charter bus carrying nearly two dozen passengers rolled onto its side. The wreck shut down a stretch of the highway in Ulster County and left traffic backed up for miles in both directions during the morning.
The vehicle was a southbound Wanda charter bus with 23 passengers on board, according to authorities. It came to rest on its side in the median of the southbound Thruway, between exits 17 and 18, just south of New Paltz, where reporters described a scene still being worked by investigators hours later.
The crash happened at around 9:30 a.m., as rain fell across the region. It remained unclear exactly what caused the bus to end up on its side, and New York State Police were at the scene reconstructing the accident in an effort to determine what went wrong on the wet roadway.
Despite the potential severity of a bus rollover, the injuries reported were relatively limited. Officials said a handful of people suffered minor injuries, which were being treated both at the scene and at a nearby hospital, with no indication given of any more serious harm to those on board.
The remaining passengers were accounted for and moved to safety. The 17 people on the bus who were not hurt were taken to a nearby reunification center, where they were able to regroup while emergency workers and investigators continued their work at the crash site.
The crash snarled traffic on one of the region's busiest routes. Initially, all lanes were blocked, bringing the highway to a standstill. Police later reopened limited lanes, keeping one lane moving in each direction while they worked, with backups stretching as far as three miles on either side of the scene.
The investigation was still continuing, with authorities working to piece together the cause of the rollover. Officials were expected to seek information from the bus company and from passengers who had been on board, and further details were likely to emerge as the reconstruction of the crash progressed through the day.