Posts Tagged ‘truck spill’
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Doughnut Glaze
July 15th, 2017
On June 16, 2009, a truck loaded with doughnut glaze lost control and rolled over on the Pacific Highway South in Des Moines, Washington, spilling it’s sticky load into a culvert. The Department of Transportation was called in to clean up the mess. The driver sustained minor injuries, but declined medical attention. Some news reports claimed this was Krispy Kreme glaze, but it doesn’t seem like it would be because they mix that up at the stores.
(When I’m working on this site, there are times when I seriously can’t believe what I am reading. I thought for sure this photo was a fake and I had my suspicions about the story. But, it turns out it is all true. I still can’t figure out why they were transporting doughnut glaze in these kinds of quantities. I mean, really? Do they use that much?)
The Seattle Times, Photo Greg Gilbert
Hamburger Patties
July 15th, 2017
On February 17, 2009, A truck driver in Salt Lake City, Utah fell asleep at the wheel, drifted into the center divider, causing the semi to strike an overhead. This split open the trailer, spilling about 40,000 pounds of hambuger patties on the highway. Patties littered the northbound lanes of I-15 and some of them hopped the divider into the southbound lanes as well.
Oddly enough just a few hours earlier, a truck spilled beer on a nearby highway. Maybe someone was planning a picnic?
Egg Gluten
July 15th, 2017
On June 23, 2009, in Topeka, Kansas, two piles of a yellow substance were spotted on the roadway. The substance was at first unidentified, which triggered a haz-mat scare that blocked the highway entrance for several hours.
Fire department haz-mat crews were dispatched to take samples. Eventually it turned out to be egg gluten, which is used as a feed additive. The truck that spilled it was not identified. Once crews knew what the substance was, it was cleaned up and the road reopened.
Extreme Makeover Walls
July 15th, 2017
On Saturday, June 27, 2009, a truck carrying prefabricated walls to an Extreme Makeover house in Erie, PA flipped, spilling concrete and prefabricated wall panels for the new home.
In addition to the cleanup of the walls, the contractor had to rush to get new panels for the house, which must be completed by Thursday, July 2.
The road was closed while they clean up the walls.
Presumably, the spill will be featured on the Extreme Makeover Home Edition show.
Piglets
July 15th, 2017
On July 30, 2009 a semi truck overturned in Pratt, Kansas, killing 500-600 piglets on their way to Iowa and injuring the driver. The truck was carrying 2,350 piglets total.
The driver made a turn, and his load shifted, causing the truck to flip over onto the passenger side. The driver was wearing a seat belt and was hospitalized.
For the next several hours the road was closed and pigs were screaming as they were rescued. Local farmers brought empty trialers to transfer the pigs into. Workers purchased some wire fencing to make pens for the pigs and holes were cut in the top of the trailer to help get them out.
Once the top half of the rig was empty, they were able to get the truck back upright and they could unload the rest of the piglets from the side and back doors of the trailer.
Some of the more badly injured pigs were euthanized. Once all the live pigs were removed and transported, volunteers removed hundreds of dead pigs from the trailer. They were taken to be “buried” in the Pratt County Landfill. Special permission was needed from the Kansas Dept. of Health & Environment.
The Pratt Tribune Photos Gale Rose
Auto Parts
July 15th, 2017
On February 15, 2010, in Windsor, Canada, a tractor-trailer side-swiped a minivan, causing the truck to go out of control and overturn.
The top of the overturned truck tore open and spilled approximately 40,000 auto parts through a chain-link fence and into a bridge plaza property close to customs offices.
The minivan’s occupants, a family of four from London on their way to Florida, suffered only minor injuries. The truck driver had to be freed from the truck and was treated and released.
It took almost 8 hours to remove all the auto parts.
Lottery Tickets
July 15th, 2017
Lottery Tickets
On Thursday, March 11, 2010, a tractor-trailer spilled about 3.5 million scratch-off lottery tickets worth about $70 million on I-75 in Florida.
Some sort of mechanical malfunction with the truck’s rear axle caused a fire under the truck. The driver pulled over, released the trailer and pulled the cab forward. He then used a fire extinguisher on the truck fire, which entered the trailer, burning some of the tickets. More tickets were damaged by water from Marion County Fire Rescue, who arrived at the scene and helped with the blaze.
The lottery tickets, some burned, some wet, were scattered on the highway.
Florida lottery officials almost immediately cancelled the tickets so they could not be redeemed.
Whale Guts
July 15th, 2017
Thar She Blows! (OK, that was too easy).
A 56-foot, 60-ton sperm whale died on a beach in Taiwan in January, 2004. Researchers wanted the carcass to perform an autopsy and for research, so they loaded the whale onto a tractor-trailer and set out through the city of Tainan, heading for the Shi-Tsau Natural Preserve. It took 13 hours, three cranes and 50 workers to get the whale loaded on the truck. Unfortunately, on the way through the city, gasses built up to a critical level in the whale and it exploded, spewing whale guts in the street, on the cars and over pedestrians. According to witnesses, the smell was pretty bad. Residents and shop owners put on masks and tried to clean up the mess. Eventually the whale continued its journey to the research center.
When I sent this picture to my friend, Richard, he said “…I initially thought a motorcyclist had exploded. But then I noticed the subtle background-whale”
Re: MSNBC and others