Feeding the Streets: Major Food Spills on Roads and Highways
Things don't always go smoothly when trucks are hauling foods on highways. Find out about some of the most amazing food spills.
Semi-trucks, trailers, and other massive vehicles are all over highways, hauling goods across the country so that we have access to everything from basic necessities to exotic and out-of-season fruits and vegetables. But what happens when these routine transports of our favorite foods go awry? Find out when you read through this roundup of major food spills! Large-scale spills aren't the only shocking events happening in the world of food. For more scintillating stories, check out our coverage of the most fascinating food events of the last year.
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Milk
Milk is one of the most recent food items to end up accidentally splattered all over a U.S. highway. In April 2013, near Santa Clarita, CA, a tractor trailer filled with milk collided with another trailer merging onto Interstate 5, according to NBC News. Luckily, other traffic was light when the accident occurred around 9pm, so while the two-hour backup it caused was certainly inconvenient for other drivers on the road, injuries and other disastrous consequences were minimal.
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Potatoes
On April 4, 2007, a tractor trailer hauling about 60,000 pounds of potatoes overturned on Interstate 90 near Coeur d'Alene, ID, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune. The big rig apparently hit a sharp curve and veered off the road, spilling its cargo. Luckily, no injuries were reported after the crash.
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Vegetable Oil
According to KHOU in Houston, TX, an incident on Highway 290 on July 12, 2011, ended in one seriously slick mess. A semi-truck, apparently unaware of damage to its trailer, dripped a large quantity of vegetable oil along the roadway. The truck did not appear to have crashed and was not at the scene when teams called in to clean up the mess arrived, but the spill still managed to block traffic for several hours.
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Groceries
In September 2011, a truck hauling goods for the Food For Less grocery store chain crashed on Highway 86 in Indio, CA, blocking the road for five hours. According to local news source KESQ, the crash was caused when the truck hauling groceries hit another tractor trailer, spilling approximately 80,000 pounds of food onto the highway.
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Flour
In 2004, a semi-truck carrying an immense quantity of flour crashed on I-95 in Laurel, MD, according to WNAX. The cleanup crew used leafblowers and brooms to clean up the large and dusty spill instead of washing it away with water, fearing the even larger (and muckier) mess they could have created by hosing the tons of flour off the highway.
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Courtesy of flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcgphoto/" target="_blank">marcgelinas</a>
Gatorade
On May 8, 2008, Florida authorities were surprised by a major crash and traffic backup involving a popular energy drink, according to UPI.com. On U.S. 27, a truck loaded with bottles of Gatorade turned over around 6am, causing the plastic bottles and their brightly-colored liquid to tumble across the highway. The driver of the truck was not injured in the accident.
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Chardonnay
On a highway in the Hudson Valley, just 70 miles north of New York City, bottles of Chardonnay were thrown out of a semi when it blew a tire and was rear-ended by another truck, according to UPI.com. The accident happened in February 2013, when the trailer section of the semi became separated from the rest of the truck, rolling over onto its side and causing broken glass bottles and wine to be spewed across the roadway. Luckily, no other vehicles aside from the two trucks were entangled in the crash.
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Budweiser Beer
The I-270 freeway near Hyattstown, MD, was flooded with beer on July 26, 2012, when a truck carrying about 77,000 pounds of Budweiser overturned. According to local news outlet WTOP, the section of the highway where the truck crashed was closed for less than an hour, but traffic was backed up for several hours afterward while cleanup continued. A hazardous materials team was brought to the accident site to investigate a ruptured fuel tank.
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Maple Syrup
On December 5, 2012, a tractor trailer carrying mass quantities of maple syrup crashed on I-95, near Mansfield, MA. The accident occurred around 2:30pm, well ahead of evening rush hour, but backed up traffic for several hours, as two entire lanes had to be shut down to clean up the spill.
Oddly enough, this wasn't the only time in 2012 that a giant maple syrup spill occurred. In June of that year, near Fort Mitchell, KY, a semi hauling thousands of gallons of the sticky stuff crashed near the Buttermilk Pike exit on I-71/75.
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Courtesy of flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/taylorsmith-/" target="_blank">TaylorSmith-</a>
Oreos
On May 19, 2008, according to Fox News, a truck transporting 14 tons of Oreo cookies overturned. The accident, which happened about 50 miles outside of Chicago on Interstate 80, occurred when the rig's driver fell asleep at the wheel. Both lanes of traffic had to be closed while the cookies, which burst out of their boxes during the crash, were picked up.
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Honey
In March 2010, a semi packed with about 25,000 pounds of honey overturned on a highway entrance ramp near Chicago, according to Chicago Breaking News. During the accident, the truck split in half, scattering about half its load of honey jars and blocking traffic for about an hour.
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Bees
Though they're not food themselves, bees are creatures essential to the food and agricultural industries. Without honeybees to pollinate the plants we consume, it would be impossible to grow many of our favorite foods, and the insects are often trucked across the country to pollinate different crops. But in July 2011, 14 million bees being transported from California to North Dakota escaped after a crash on an Idaho highway, according to KPVI, an NBC News affiliate. The semi-truck was carrying about 400 hive boxes and honey when it careened off the roadway and overturned. It took crews from multiple agencies the entire day to clean up both the honey and the bees after the incident.
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