Wayback Wednesday: Spilled fruit spoils drive through the Deck Park Tunnel
Wayback Wednesday: Spilled fruit spoils drive through the Deck Park Tunnel
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.
Watermelons are all over I-10 WB in the tunnel. Expect long delays & consider detour on I-17. 1 lane open #PhxTraffic pic.twitter.com/Ncqa5SdlMh
— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) July 11, 2013
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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