Truck Carrying Crane Hits 3 Overpasses In Minnesota

If you're like me, whenever you encounter a truck on the highway (like Hwy-52, for example) hauling a big load (like a crane, for example), I always cringe a little bit if I'm near them when they drive under an overpass, because it always looks like the load isn't going to make it. Most times, my fear is unjustified. But every now and again, maybe it's not...

Take this story out of Moorhead, Minnesota, just outside Fargo. BringMeTheNews reports the incident happened this weekend on I-94 when a truck hauling a railroad crane hit not one or two, but three different overpasses along the interstate before the crane it was hauling finally fell off the semi.

The story says,  "A railroad crane being hauled through Moorhead that “exceeded height limitations” hit three separate overpasses on the highway before falling to the ground.

The crane, according to the State Patrol incident report, was being carried by a semi, heading westbound on Interstate 94 through Moorhead at the time of the incident around 11:46 a.m. Sunday.

At 34th street, the vehicle struck the overpass – and then a good mile-plus down the road, hit two more overpasses (one for a railroad) at 20th Street, the State Patrol says. That’s when the crane came off its trailer and fell to the pavement."

That's going to leave a mark! The story also says debris from the semi damaged another car that was on the interstate at the same time, but that the driver wasn't injured. That's what I always envision happening to me. I'll be minding my own business, tooling along the interstate, when I'll get smacked upside the head by debris falling from a load that had "exceeded height limitations."

I once lived near an old, two-lane overhead steel truss bridge that spanned the Yellow River back in Wisconsin. One spring, a truck carrying a piece of logging equipment that also had "exceeded height limitations," came flying across the bridge and managed to hit every single overhead steel support girder with so much force, authorities had to close the bridge for weeks until the proper repairs could be made and the bridge was deemed safe to travel over again.

Maybe I'm a little paranoid about these kinds of things. I mean, how many trucks with big loads on them successfully drive under how many overpasses each day? Way too many to count, right? So these incidents are clearly the minority. But it still runs through my head each time I see a truck with a big load heading towards an overpass when I'm on I-90, I-35 or Highway-52!