Wayback Wednesday: Spilled fruit spoils drive through the Deck Park Tunnel

Wayback Wednesday: Spilled fruit spoils drive through the Deck Park Tunnel

July 11, 2018

EDITOR'S NOTE: Every once in a while we reach back in ADOT Blog archives for a little slice of history. This one involves a spilled load of produce past its prime.

By Caroline Carpenter / ADOT Communications

No one looks forward to rotten fruit salad, but it’s even worse when there's a semitrailer full of it.

Five years ago today a semi carrying a load of rotten fruit crashed into a wall of the Deck Park Tunnel, spilling its load into the westbound lanes of I-10 and requiring a memorable cleanup by ADOT crews.

 

 

The fruit was strewn across the freeway, and one tunnel wall was damaged.

Damaged Tunnel

Crews using construction equipment spent the better part of a hot July day shoveling rotten melons and then hosing down the tunnel. It's an example of why it can sometimes take quite some time to reopen a crash scene.

Engineers determined the damage to the tunnel wall wasn’t structural. By the end of the day, all lanes had reopened in the tunnel.

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