Tanker Truck Flattens Patrol Car
28 Ton Capacity Transport
Flings Tar Onto Home
BUT THAT WAS MY HOUSE! The day was Wednesday, June 28, 1961. I will never forget that day as long as I live. Interestingly enough, I do forget some of the details. So I do expect my brother to post a lot of comments and anyone else that reads this blog and lived in Cherokee at that time.
I was a junior in high school and had a job at a photo studio during the summer. My dad and I often went home for lunch together. The paper where he worked, and the studio that I worked at were just a couple of doors apart. The part I don’t remember is how I found out.
The highway patrolmen were conducting brake checks on traffic as it entered Cherokee. The truck driver was not aware of this check point held by two highway patrol men and could not see them as he came down a steep hill. He tried not to hit the patrol car in front of him so he turned the corner sharply but “ flattened it like a pancake,” so said the Cherokee Times.
I can remember walking home with dad and him telling me what happened, now that I think about it. Mom worked nights and was in the house and so was my brother, Keith.
The tar broke out a basement window and got quite a lot of tar in the basement, and all over the driveway and the yard. I cannot believe that Mom and Keith were not injured or burned.
I was just sitting here reading the article and thinking that the damage sounds so minor. It took my dad a year if not longer to get the tar out of the house.
I can also remember a box fan in the bedroom window where my parents slept, blowing air out. That was said to be a blessing keeping at least some of the tar out of the house.
Of course, my parents had to sue for damages, I used to have the papers that Mom had saved. I don’t remember much, but I think their lawyer sued the state for having a check point at the bottom of the hill. I do remember how much money they got after the lawyer fees; just over two thousand dollars.
My dad patiently took so many things and soaked them in gasoline to clean them. I do know that they had to have a new cement driveway put in.
I am going to let Keith fill you in on details that I have forgotten.
One thing I am remembering as I sit here writing this story is the smell. I don’t think I will ever forget the smell of hot tar. The only way we could get into our house was with planks that were put over the tar as temporary walk ways. It seems we used those planks for a very long time.
I did forget to say that neither of the patrolmen were hurt. Un believeable
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Iowa, but I think I know what it must sound like in Florida when a hurricane hits your house.
ReplyDeleteI was 12 years old and doing what 12 year olds do in the morning - just hanging out on the couch watching some cartoons.
Mom was in her bedroom trying to get some sleep. She worked most nights so the day started a little later for her.
We had one of those older style houses with our kitchen in the back of the house. Lu’s bedroom was next to the kitchen and then toward the front of the house came the dining room with my bedroom next to it, and then the living room with a second bedroom next to it. That was Mom and Dad’s bedroom - the front most bedroom with a window that looked to the north over our oak tree covered driveway. That tree provided some privacy between us and the street.
Across the entire front of the house was a closed in porch with glass windows all across.
Our house was positioned on the north side of town and located at the bottom of a hill on the corner of two very busy streets. Well, as busy as streets get in a town of eight thousand. The street that ran in front of our house was called 2nd street, but it was really US Highway 59. Highway 59 runs all the way from Texas to Canada. Before “the bypass” was built to route traffic around town, all US 59 traffic had to come through the heart of Cherokee and pass right in front of our house – at the bottom of this huge hill. Across 2nd street to the west was “our” A & W drive-in restaurant that Lu has talked about in one of her previous postings.
Looking through the front windows from the couch in the living room, I could tell it was busy outside. I wasn’t too interested though. There were cartoons on TV, and I was busy with my corn flakes. Then I started to hear it… (to be continued)
I think I hate you Keith, I was really in to it when I see the to be continued. Not fair!!
ReplyDeleteThe Iowa State Police had decided that a perfect spot to hold a vehicle safety inspection was right at the bottom of Cherokee’s north hill, and that location just happened to be right in front of our house. When the “noise” started, I tore myself away from the TV long enough to notice that right outside our front windows there were a lot of cars just sitting in the street. The state police had stopped traffic in both directions and they were having the owners exercise all of their car’s safety equipment. They turned on their head lights; they checked their backup lights, tires, mufflers, and horns. All the standard stuff. There were quite a few people in the street walking around their cars as well as a number of troopers doing the inspections, not to mention all the folks still sitting in their stopped cars waiting their turn to be inspected.
ReplyDeleteNone of this was too interesting to me so I went back to the couch, cartoons, and breakfast.
If you have ever been in a car accident or close by, you know the panicked horn blowing that always seems to precede the eventual crash. That’s what I initially heard, but it didn’t sound like the car horns being tested out front in the street – it was a loud air horn that only trucks have. It was loud when it started, but it continued to get even louder and louder. Even this oblivious 12 year old kid decided to check it out. But honestly before I could even look up from my corn flakes there was this huge explosion of sound. Metal screeching, tires squealing, and then a hurricane slammed against the side of our house.
(to be continued)
The panicked air horn was coming from a huge semi truck pulling a tanker of hot tar. It was the same sort of truck and trailer combination you would see delivering gasoline. He was traveling south on highway 59 toward Cherokee, and when the driver got to the top of Cherokee’s north hill; he realized his brakes had failed.
ReplyDeleteHe was picking up speed going faster and faster with no way to slow down, and looking down the highway toward the bottom of the hill what did he see? A vehicle safety inspection going on with dozens of people just standing around in the middle of the street. Both lanes had been stopped. There was no where for him to go!
Remember that our house was on a corner lot. Highway 59 ran north and south directly in front. On the north side of our house running east and west was Bluff Street. Bluff Street was more of a residential street and didn’t have quite the amount of traffic that Second Street had. So naturally that’s where one of the state troopers parked his car while he was conducting inspections - on the south east corner of Second and Bluff - right outside my mother’s bedroom window.
The air horn was getting so loud that I had almost made up my mind to get up to see, when the mother-load of all tar explosions hit the house.
To his credit, the truck driver seeing what was going on at the bottom of the hill, and realizing he had no brakes and zero chance of missing the people, decided to take a hard left turn at the bottom of the hill onto Bluff Street. But he was going way too fast to make the turn, and flipped his truck trying to miss the trouper’s patrol car parked on the street.
I wish I could have seen that part. It must have been absolutely spectacular. A huge tanker flipping in the air contorting and twisting and then landing right on top of that patrol car. I had no idea a full size car could become so flat.
Between the totally flattened patrol car and our house was that huge old oak tree and our driveway.
Now here’s the cool part.
(to be continued)
It seems to me that my brother is really enjoying not only telling this story but getting my goat. lol I guess I will just continue to scream at home and wait for the story to unfurl.
ReplyDeleteThere was no way that truck was going to stop. That is until it came up against an immovable object. After flying through the air with a full load of tar, and after totally smashing a police car, that truck decided to take on our Oak tree! Which one would be the winner?
ReplyDeleteWell… The collision would certainly have been something to see. The tractor of that rig came to rest half way up in the Oak tree, and the trailer full of tar swung around and smashed against that tree with such force that the tank cracked open like a water balloon. Hot scolding tar was hurled across our driveway against Mom’s bedroom wall with hurricane force. It blew out the basement windows and smashed against the side of our house. Hot tar literally flowed across the driveway into our basement. What tar was left on the driveway was inches thick.
There was liquid tar running like a river down our front sidewalk. Kids came from all over. What am I saying? Everyone came from all over just to look at the truck stuck in our tree and to look at the tar house.
Even though she lay only 6 inches from a torrent of hot scalding tar, Mom was not injured. In fact no one was badly hurt. I believe the truck driver had a banged up arm, but not anything really serious. Because of his quick thinking, a horrendous accident was avoided that would undoubtedly have caused the loss of many lives. Some credit does have to be given to a mighty fine old Oak tree as well. It sure stood tall and strong in a crisis and for a fact it saved the life of my mother.
It took months to clean up the mess. The house had to be resided and painted. A bulldozer was brought in to dig up our drive way and side walks so new concrete could be poured. And as Lu mentioned in her post, the basement was painstakingly scrubbed inch by inch with solvent. Certainly more sweat was expended in clean up than the mere $2000+ the court awarded my folks in their law suit. They probably would have been able to buy their own island with the court awarded judgments we have today.
Probably the saddest thing to watch, however, was when that magnificent fine old Oak tree was cut down. It had given its life in protection of ours.
Perhaps the good Lord and the fine old oak tree made a deal and decided that Mom could save a few lives of her own. Thanks Keith, you are a fantastic story teller. I felt like I was there but I am going to miss you comments every morning, so is Fran.
ReplyDeleteMom, you've had a hostile takeover of your blog. LOL! What a fascinating story that I've NEVER heard! Amazing!!
ReplyDelete