Like many truckers, there was a group of drivers on a stretch of highway in Washington who were ringing in the new year away from home. But their delay wasn’t due to an accident, bad traffic, or winter weather. These motorists were buried under a mountain of tumbleweeds that covered cars and trucks alike.
On New Year’s Eve, hundreds and hundreds of tumbleweeds found their way onto State Route 240 just outside of Richland, WA. It started with just a few on the road. Soon though, high winds had brought so many that drivers couldn’t see the road in front of them. Wherever they pulled over, they were soon buried by piles of tumbleweed up to 30 feet high.
While this may sound like a minor annoyance, according to WSP Trooper Chris Thorson, the road was actually closed for around 10 hours. Highway workers had to bring in snow plows to remove the tumbleweeds.
“People were still stuck at midnight and rung in the new year trapped under the weeds,” Thorson told CBS.
By 4:30am, the road had opened again.
“In 20 years on the job, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Thorson in an interview with The Seattle Times. “We’ve unofficially dubbed it ‘Tumbleggedon 2020.’”
Source: nytimes, sesattletimes, cbsnews, livescience, twitter
Holy crap! I’ve been blasted by bunches of tumbleweeds, but NOTHING like this!
That happened to me about 8 yrs ago on Highway 10 coming out of walsenburg, Co, it was as so bad I had to stop and get off the road on th grass, afraid I would be rear ended, very scary. CB was useless
A perfect simile to how the Government is overwhelming the transportation industry…and providing little ‘good’.
I remember my first journey along I-90 through Washington and Idaho. The first sight of tumbleweeds enmasse across the freeway. I always pictured them in like old west Arizona regions, but not there. Was kinda interesting.
I’ve seen it bad, with VW Bug suve shrubs blowing into traffic, on I-10 in SE AZ, but nothing like the videos posted of that mess!
🔥 Fire think about it. 🔥
We don’t have this problem in California we just burn everything that grows.
New climate change results keep occurring. You’re right, blame it on the government. They refuse to accept the facts.
That could have been very dangerous if those weeds had caught on fire and burn quickly while all those vehicles were in there.
Tumbleweeds are NOT a result of climate change. Geez…