Sept 28, 2009: Truck Spills

[xoxoxoBruce]

A gazillion trucks carry the stuff we need, and a lot of crap we don't need but will buy anyway, over the highways... night and day... 24/7.

And sometimes they drop things....

A trailer carrying 26 alligator carcasses to a processing plant overturned on a Fort Lauderdale highway (year unknown). The carcasses, which weighed about 10,000 pounds were put on a flatbed truck and taken to the processing plant.

A truck overturned near Salt Lake City in August, 2005. Other drivers went over to the truck to help and the crew got out OK. But the driver quickly shouted to the bystanders that his load was 35,000 lbs. of explosives, so everybody ran. About 3 minutes later, the truck exploded creating a 30-foot deep crater in the road, blasting chunks out of the canyon wall, setting brush fires, and damaging a Union Pacific rail line.

And here's one I actually saw personally, on the way to work.

On Valentine's Day, February 14, 2008, a container apparently fell off a tractor-trailer on I-95 on the ramp onto I-476. The container ripped open, spilling cookies on the ramp and onto I-476 below. Nobody was injured. Workers had to lower the container over the side onto the highway below because it was dangling over the edge. It took 5 hours to clean up the cookies, which were made in Honduras.

Lots more spills and chills.