SAN ANTONIO – Chicken and beer sound like the makings of a pretty good cookout.
Instead, they were the ingredients for some headaches for Monday morning drivers along two area roadways.
Two 18-wheelers overturned in separate crashes during the late night and early morning hours, leading to traffic delays that lasted throughout the morning commute.
Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Deon Cockrell said for some unknown reason, the driver of a big rig carrying cases of Bud Light went off Interstate 10 into the grassy median near Mile Marker 538.
The cargo, which included bottles and cans, spilled onto the roadway.
Cockrell said although it happened around 11:30 p.m. Sunday, DPS had to wait for crews with heavy equipment to arrive in order to clear the road.
He said it appeared the only alcohol involved in the crash was the load of beer that was being hauled by the truck.
"The cans are salvageable but the bottles are not. So we're having to repack and it's going to go back to the shipper," said Leon Hollins, whose company, Hollins Freight Handlers, was called in to clean up the mess.
The incident would turn out to be the first of two big jobs for Collins' crew.
Shortly before 1 a.m. Monday, a second big rig overturned, spilling its load onto the eastbound Highway 90 access road near Ray Ellison Drive.
Hollins said the truck was carrying 42,000 pounds of frozen chicken strips.
"It's all disposed. It's a condemned load," he said. "Once it's overturned, you know, it's not fit for the market."
His crew spent hours plucking bags of chicken from the road.
"It's a job," Hollins said. "It's just time-consuming."
The driver of the truck told San Antonio police he hit a construction barrier, causing him to lose control of the truck, which turned on its side and slid into a utility pole.
The driver and two passengers, including a 2-year-old child, escaped injury.
For other drivers, though, there was no escaping the traffic troubles that the two wrecks caused.
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