Where Did All the Drivers Go?

The huge wreck and tunnel fire on the I-5 Friday night has left more than one mystery in its wake. They're still not sure how the whole melee got started, and so far, officials can't account for at least nine people who would have been driving some of the destroyed vehicles:

Authorities scrambled Monday to find at least nine drivers who apparently escaped from vehicles trapped in a weekend tunnel inferno that killed three people on a key transportation route.

Thirty-one vehicles were involved in the pileup in the curving tunnel on Interstate 5, but the California Highway Patrol has accounted for only 23 people, including two men and a 6-year-old boy who were killed.

If all of them were at the wheel at the time of the crash, excluding the boy, that leaves nine unaccounted for drivers. The number could be higher if there were passengers in those vehicles.

Investigators are confident only three people died, but CHP Assistant Chief Warren Stanley said they have no idea what happened to the others who left their vehicles to the flames.

"We have no idea," Stanley said. "We haven't identified all the vehicles, we haven't identified all the drivers."

My own speculation is that perhaps a couple of those drivers may have been illegals who vamanos'd upon finding themselves in the accident, but there's also the awful possibility that their remains could have been incinerated in the 1,400 degree temperatures and there was no body left for the officials to find. There haven't been any additional reports of missing persons, so the whole thing has everybody a little puzzled.