Tomatoes are a yummy addition to any sandwich but they can also be an absolute mess. You can imagine what cleaning up thousands of smushed tomatoes from a highway must have been like.
A truck with more than 150,000 tomatoes on board spilled its contents across a busy motorway in California, bringing traffic to a standstill for hours. The splattered tomatoes caused a seven-car accident and closed most of Interstate 80 near Alamo in Vacaville.
The California Highway Patrol posted a thread on Twitter with updates on the accident as it happened. The California Department of Transportation arrived at the scene to clean up the huge mess and to get the lanes open as soon as possible.
During tomato season, lorry drivers use the major motorway to transport the fruit across the state. An initial collision caused the tomato truck to swerve into the central divide of the motorway, which led to the truck spilling fist-sized tomatoes across a 200-foot section of the motorway.
According to Highway Patrol Officer Jason Tyhurst, the accident left a sea of red sauce about “two feet deep” that authorities waded through to clean up. Cars also drove over the tomatoes, creating a combination of tomato juice, oil and dirt on the highway.
“These tomato skins, man, once they hit the asphalt it’s like walking on ice,” said Tyhurst.
According to authorities, only three people had minor injuries and a fourth was in the hospital with a broken leg. The highway was reopened after a few hours of cleaning.
Source: https://twitter.com/ChpSolano/status/1564233292986994689