Truck Accident Dumps 40,000 Pounds Of Chicken Feathers On Interstate

Morning commuters rushing to work Wednesday found themselves cooped up in a huge traffic jam after a truck overturned spilling its peculiar cargo — about 40,000 pounds (18,144 kilograms) of chicken feathers.

According to the Seattle Times, no other vehicles were involved in the collision and Trooper Rick Johnson, the Washington State Patrol Information Officer, told the publication the culprit responsible for leaving the travelers’ feathers ruffled was the driver, who fell asleep at the wheel.

The semi on northbound Interstate 5 in Federal Way rolled over south of South 320th Street and all lanes had to be blocked at times, while crews worked to remove the truck and scoop up the feathers.

By the time the freeway was reopened around 7:30 a.m. local time (EDT), traffic was backed up for miles. The feathers’ were destined for a rendering company in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, that recycles animal by-products into ingredients used for things like pet food and soap, although, Johnson said the feathers “definitely have an odor.”

“I asked (colleagues) to tell me the truth about whether I smell like chicken,” he added.

The trooper said the company that employed the driver would have to pay for the cleanup and to have a section of the guardrail destroyed in the fiasco repaired.

He said similar cases in the past led to drivers being cited for second-degree negligent driving and fined $550, the Seattle Times reported.

"I drank coffee and took one of those pills that had caffeine," the driver said, Komo News reported. "But... it just took a few seconds, but when I wake up I realized I hit the (guard) rail and...nothing I could do."

The Washington State Department of Transportation, via their Twitter handle, brought some light heartedness to the feathery matter while providing traffic updates, with some GIFs and the fact that one of their engineers calculated it would have taken about 2,300 chickens to come up with this many feathers.

“40,000 lbs of chicken feathers = 18 million feathers (they still weigh the same as 40,000 lbs of bricks, however). With 8,000 feathers on a chicken that's almost 2,300 chickens worth of feathers,” the tweet pointed.

The puns on social media were aplenty with one user suggesting it was a “fowl way to start the day,” and “a pretty ticklish situation to deal with.” User Sara said: “I would say good cluck cleaning that all up, but I can see that you scrambled to take care of it already.”

Chicken feathers, while not of any use to the poultry industry, come packed with Keratin – a fibrous structural protein. Keratin can also be molded to create biodegradable plastics, NPR reported.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the fibers of chicken feathers have been beaten to a pulp and used to make paper.