Highway 35 in Scottsboro next to the Tennessee River was painted white after a semi-tanker truck deposited its contents over the roadway. Alabama cleanup crews raced to keep it from polluting the marina by mixing it with sand to stop its flow. A few hundred gallons seeped into the waterway, but the latex paint was not considered a serious environmental hazard.
Apparently, the truck’s breaks went out or was otherwise unable to stop before it rolled down the highway.
Lego Rainbow of Colors
It wasn't a semi-truck that dumped the tiny toy bricks all over the highway this time. The story is much sadder. A large tote of Legos that belonged to an 11-year-old boy came loose from atop of his family's vehicle. His mother said on Facebook, "He cried it seemed like forever, but I tried to recover as many as I could."
Then, everything changed. A firefighter named Eric McClain photographed the multicolored traffic impediment and posted it to FB. The mother saw the post and commented. After that, hearts swelled. Everyone wanted to help. McClain said, "It's amazing, there are so many people from all over the country who want to give this kid Legos."
Yuck Factor: Reader Discretion Advised
In Australia in 2006, a semi-tanker truck flipped over and spewed thousands of gallons of gooey pink processed meat products. Eww. The raw fleshy goo slowly seeped down the road like molten lava. One can only hope that no vegans were amongst the cleanup crew!
Pet owners, too, might want to hurl after hearing that the processed meat product was heading to a factory to make dog food.
Doggone Dream Come True
The I-5, stretching almost the entire West Coast of the nation, sees a lot of truck spills and this one was for the dogs. The Washington state crash involved a semi-truck overturning and spilling its load of dog food into the ditch. Once again, the driver conked out behind the wheel.
Thousands of pounds of 50-pound bags of dog food piled in the ditch, a virtual feast for our canine companions. The driver was lucky he wasn't crushed by one of the bags after he crashed, according to authorities at the scene who charged him with negligent driving. This pet food calamity happened in Fife in November of 2014.
Gobble Gobble!
Seven hundred turkeys were set free after the truck that was transporting them flipped over and dumped them out. Butterball owned the birds. A few of them perished in the crash, but, astonishingly, most of the birds just chilled near the overturned truck waiting for recapture. They're not known as the smartest bird!
The accident happened in North Carolina in January of 2018, the driver was cited for unsafe speeding.