Tanker truck full of tar flips over in Virginia and is in need of heavy towing
As summer is starting, temperatures are going up causing the team at Road Runner to recall an impressive heavy towing job five years ago. On this day the temperature was over 100 degrees. This heavy towing incident happened near Sterling Boulevard on State Route 28. A tar truck had flipped over, the lid popped open and the hot roofing tar exploded everywhere. It was hot, sticky and messy.
No one quite knew what to do. Tar was leaking out. There was tar on the road, shoulder, and grassy area of Sterling Boulevard. In other words, there was tar everywhere. The Virginia Department tried to control the mess by putting sand on the tar; however, the sand just made everything messier and dirtier. To get control of the situation, we first placed boards down. This allowed us to work without getting stuck in the tar. Next, we moved to stop the tar that was leaking out of the tanker. We knew we had to act as quickly as possible or the mess would get worse.
We had to get the tanker upright to stop the flow. We retrieved our airbags and placed them underneath the tanker filled with tar. We used airbags, as the tanker was only half full. This meant that when we uprighted it, the tanker was bound to just come back down on its other side. With air bags we were able control things and keep it from falling back over.
We did all this while stopping every fifteen minutes to rest. It was so hot that our team needed to take regular breathers as the heat from the tanker was accentuated by the heat in the air. The memory of this recovery is really a point of pride for the Road Runner Wrecker Team. We overcame a very difficult situation and succeeded. The most painful part of the memory was the cleanup of our equipment. The air bags, towing straps and heavy equipment were covered with tar.
We know that it has been a number of years, but this recovery was a prideful memory that we wanted to share! Thanks.
Details: Overturned tractor trailer full of tar needs heavy towing
Road Runner Wrecker Heavy Towing Service came to the rescue of a hot tar tanker trailer with tar leaking out of the top. The trailer truck was driving on State Route 28 Virginia when it flipped over the side of a ramp near Sterling Boulevard on the highway. The vehicle was badly damaged and the lid of the tanker had popped open causing hot tar to spread everywhere. The heavy towing team responded with two heavy wrecker trucks, an air cushion recovery system, a 75-ton rotator, and plywood to drive over the tar. Our heavy towing team took special care as the tanker was extremely hot. Extra caution was needed. The tanker was half-full which made the job even harder for our heavy towing team as the liquid can flush around. Road Runner Wrecker Service had a team of 10+ heavy towing experts working on-site to deal with the emergency towing situation – that’s how difficult and messy it was. From the moment they received the call, our heavy towing team took around 4.5 hours to get to the truck and deal with the trouble. Our heavy towing team used the wreckers and air cushions to lift the trailer truck onto the heavy wrecker truck and they got it done. Great teamwork and quite an experience dealing with hot tar and all. Well done!