[Steve]

Late last night I was driving home on a long, lonely stretch of Interstate freeway 5, which runs the length of the West Coast from Washington State to the border with Mexico. I was just outside Stockton, CA, about 30 miles South of Sacramento and in the heart of the great Central Valley of California. I passed a big rig, a tractor pulling two flatbed trailers. On each trailer was a large, plastic or fiberglass tub, filled with just harvested, ripe tomatoes enroute to the cannery.

Seeing that tomato hauler brought back memories of the tomato harvest each summer in the Los Banos area, where for a few weeks in late July and early August almost continuous truck traffic of tomato haulers dominated highway 5, rushing their loads from extensive fields near Los Banos to the canneries in Modesto and Stockton. Those tomatoes were ripe and juicy, destined to be made into tomato paste or canned.

One early morning 0255 and I were working day shift when we were dispatched to a reported collision on Northbound I-5 between two of these tomato haulers that had somehow tangled up and according to the report had made a big mess. I knew this would be a serious hazard situation and being some distance away, I turned on the porch light (rear flashing amber), activated the wig wags and accelerated to 110, reaching the scene in a short time.

What a mess! Two tubs had broken loose and spilled their loads of about 40,000 total lbs of very ripe tomatoes all over both lanes for a couple hundred feet. I checked to see if anyone was injured, then immediately turned to traffic control and flared off all northbound traffic (fortunately light) into the dirt center divider as these tomatoes were quite slippery when crushed and presented a real hazard. I called dispatch for a medium rig tow to get the trailers back on their wheels then called for DOT to help me figure out what to do with the huge mess. We had to get those tomatoes off of and away from the traffic lanes; a sweeper truck not only wouldn’t be big enough but it would just make a bigger mess. They came up with a great idea: Get the closest available Fire unit to simply hose the mess off the highway. Fire responded quickly and it worked perfectly; in minutes the gooey mess was well off the roadway. Trailers were righted and in a short time the trucks were on their way, limping off missing a lot of product. Someone would have some ‘splainin to do to their boss later that day.

Once again 0255 and I had served the motoring public, faithful to the oath we took: Whether in rain, sleet, snow, or thousands of pounds of gooey tomatoes…