Overnight tractor trailer crash snarls traffic in Delaware

After almost nine hours of cleanup, all lanes of I-95 northbound in Delaware have finally been reopened.

A tractor trailer carrying celery and cauliflower drifted off the right side of the interstate’s northbound lanes at 1:22 a.m. and crashed into the barrier just before the I-95/I-495 split.

Delaware Dept. of Transportation spokesman C.R. McLeod said the tractor trailer was leaning precariously over I-295, prompting DelDOT to close four lanes of I-95 and a single lane of I-295 for cleanup.

McLeod said two cranes had to be brought in to upright the truck as well as a dump truck to take away the debris. A fuel spill, he said, prolonged the cleanup through the morning rush hour.

“It was just a mess and a bad place to have an incident like this happen,” McLeod said. “We’re not sure what the cause was, but from where the scrapes and gouges start against the barrier, it was a quarter mile long, and the driver couldn’t get control of the truck in time.”

Some drivers were stuck in traffic for about two hours and delays stretched as far back as the Delaware state line. The driver was taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries.

The crash remains under investigation by Delaware State Police.