BEAUMONT, Texas — Firefighters in Orange County had to hose an expensive mess off of the interstate early Friday morning after a pickup truck carrying a load of live crawfish was involved in a wreck.
The wreck just before 3 a.m. briefly forced the shutdown of the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 over Cow Bayou so crews could clean up.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers say a 29-year-old Louisiana man driving a 2014 Ford F-250 pickup was driving too fast for the wet conditions.
He lost control of the truck, which struck the inside barrier wall and crossed over the north side of the roadway and ended up coming to rest on the service road, according to a news release from DPS.
A refrigerator box being hauled by the truck was loaded with live crawfish which spilled across the westbound lanes of the interstate west of the 867 mile marker the release said.
The current retail price of live crawfish is $4.50 per pound according to Alan Gaulding of Southeast Texas Crawfish in Hamshire. Gaulding told 12News that a truck that size could have been carrying about 800-900 pounds of mudbugs which would have put the load's retail value at about $3,600-$4,050.
The driver, who was not injured, was cited by troopers for driving at an unsafe speed.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.