A 50 ton problem
Photo courtesy of IDAHO STATE POLICE/ Troopers respond to the incident on Interstate-90 that would end up causing a roughly 16 hour stoppage of westbound traffic.
The Silver Valley is no stranger to semi-trucks crashing and/or losing their cargo.
It wasn’t that long ago that several residents packed their freezers with frozen pizzas after a semi lost its cargo near Wallace.
Unfortunately for motorists traveling west near the Golconda District last Thursday though, it wasn’t pizza that blocked the road this time.
Idaho State Police reports that in the early afternoon of Thursday, Dec. 5, a semi-truck traveling westbound on I-90 lost its cargo near milepost 63. While no one was injured in the initial incident, the dumped cargo created quite a traffic jam that nobody for the longest time knew how to clear up.
The cargo in question was a large metal storage container that contained a 100,000 pound generator.
Following the initial response, it didn’t take long for officials to realize that nothing in the Silver Valley was strong enough to move the massive road block. To the frustration of the motorists unlucky enough to be behind the mess, the position of the generator combined with recovery crews working on scene made both lanes of travel completely impassable.
As a result, travelers were forced to wait patiently as a special crane was requested from Spokane, Washington to come a remove the obstacle. By the time it arrived around 10 p.m., there were many people that had been struck for over 4 hours.
Things didn’t get much better when ISP announced right before midnight that the company on scene were hoping to have one lane of travel opened by 3 a.m.
Stories of frustration from those trapped in the ever growing traffic jam began appearing on social media.
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” one driver said on the News-Press Facebook, “me and my family have been sitting up here for over 2 hours now. And a trucker said it’d be at least 6 or 7 hours till we start moving.”
From delayed food truck deliveries to late babysitters, people from all walks of life were affected. Fights even broke out as tensions heightened with each passing hour.
To escape the situation, ISP even reported seeing cars exiting the roadway and driving away on the nearby Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes.
At 5:13 a.m., both lanes of traffic were officially opened, but it took a while to get everything moving back to normal speeds again.