On Sept 21, 2007, a truck carrying 160 pigs to a slaughterhouse overturned on I-215 in Las Vegas. 47 pigs died in the accident and most of the survivors were trapped inside for nearly three hours until another truck arrived to take the pigs and the truck could be uprighted. About a dozen pigs escaped through a crack in the roof of the trailer. Some injured pigs were euthanized at the scene.

 

AP

 

On September 14, 2005 a truck carrying tons of quarters caught fire and spilled most of them on the highway. Workers “cleaned up” with heavy equipment, shovels and buckets.

 

 

This one is stranger than most. On January 2, 2009, shortly before 8:00 a.m., thousands of shoes mysteriously appeared on a Miami highway. Who spilled the shoes? Nobody knows. But they disrupted traffic on the Palmetto Expressway for hours. There was no sign of a crash and no one has claimed them.

They were a strange mix of shoes… work boots, slippers, sneakers, sandals, even roller blades. A private contractor was hired to pick up the shoes and dump them in an empty field (weird). Soles4Souls, a nonprofit organization, was expected to pick them up and distribute them, probably in Haiti.

If anyone does come forward they will be charged for the clean up.

The shoes had what seemed to be yard sale price tags on them. I’m assuming they are in pairs, or they wouldn’t be very useful as a donation. Of course, someone will have to match them up now that they are dumped in a field. Very strange. Perhaps aliens are abducting people’s shoes and returning them to Florida highways when they are done.

via Miami Herald

On July 18, 2007, a truck loaded with 6,500 gallons of red wine rolled several times in California. The driver had minor injuries.

The rig rolled several times, tearing off the valve at the top of the wine tank, allowing red wine to gush from the tank. Crews were able to save about half the wine.

Napa Valley Register

On April 3, 2007, a truck spilled liquid dye on a 1,500 foot stretch of I-495 near Boston. The highway was closed for a while and workers were trying to remove the dye with sanders. The highway was reopened once the dye was dry. The driver of the truck was identified.

Mark Wilson, Boston Globe

On September 30, 2003 a trailer came loose from a truck from the Dallas Crown horse processing plant in Kaufman, TX, spilling horse blood.

These images are from a website with information about horse slaughter. Some of the site is a bit gruesome and extreme. I was surprised to learn that in the US over 94,000 horses are slaughtered for export and an additional 20,000 are sent to Mexico and Canada for human consumption.

Mary Nash’s Horsemeat Website

On July 6, a 32-foot long trailer truck carrying more than 400 goats crashed in San Rafael, Calif. 243 of the goats died. Apparently, the goats were in 4 levels of compartments, which collapsed during the crash.

Elliot Katz, DVM arrived soon after the crash and claimed that the police refused to open the trailer doors for fear of causing another traffic accident. This left the goats piled in the truck for over an hour.
IDA president Elliot Katz, DVM also arrived soon after the crash. “There was horrible screaming coming out of the truck from all the animals suffocating under the weight of others,” he said. Still, police refused to open the trailer doors for fear of causing another traffic accident. Meanwhile, hundreds of goats suffered inside for almost a full hour, piled one on top of another, slowly and painfully asphyxiating to death, before the doors were opened.

The goats were owned by Goats R Us, who rents them out to graze and clear away brush which can ignite in hot weather and start fires.
“Those goats didn’t have die,” said Terri Oyarzun, owner of Goats R Us, the company which “owns” the goats and rents them out to graze and clear away dry brush, which can ignite in hot weather and start fires. Oyarzun had herding dogs on hand, so the goats could have been corralled away from traffic, but police ignored her objections and kept the doors locked.

Some of the surviving goats were found grazing on lawns nearby.
Several IDA staff members and other onlookers also soon gathered at the scene, and stood shocked and appalled behind yellow police tape as they witnessed the carnage. Bystanders watched officials pull both living and dead goats from the trailer wreck, then stack the victims’ mangled corpses ten-deep in the street. Eventually, officials let Dr. Katz assist with rescuing the still-living goats from among the piles of dead and dying. Ultimately, there were about 150 survivors, some of whom were found grazing on lawns in the neighborhood nearby.

The driver and passengers were not injured.

 

From the IDA website, which is an organization dedicated to protecting the rights, welfare, and habitats of animals. Their site gives a somewhat more political account of the accident.

 

 

You just can’t make this stuff up.

On December 15, 2008, a tractor trailer with two tankers of road de-icer driving on I-205 in Portland, OR, slipped on the icy road, overturned, and spilled some of it’s load on the highway.

The tankers were loaded with calcium magnesium acetate, which is used to de-ice roads. The driver, who was not injured, reported that he was slowing down to pull off to the right when the tanker trailers began to slide on the icy roadway. They ran off the road, rolled over, and disconnected from the truck. One of the tankers broke open and leaked the road de-icer. The spill was contained by the Metro Area Interagency HAZMAT Team and the Clackamas County Fire Department. The northbound lanes were closed for about a half-hour and the right lane was closed for over four hours.

Via KTVL

Got Milk? Cookie Spill.

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.

 

Channel 6 ABC

May 10, 2004. Some sort of heavy duty equipment.

UPDATE 3/8/08: Kristi tells us that this is a Caterpillar D8 Bulldozer (probably a D8R). Thanks Kristi!

 

Wes Y. Keller