Advertisement

Up to 1,000 grapefruits spilled on the Florida Turnpike in Orange County

Loose fruit created a traffic squeeze that was not appealing.
 
WESH 2 News shared aerial video of a crew cleaning up the grapefruit spill on the Florida Turnpike Wednesday.
WESH 2 News shared aerial video of a crew cleaning up the grapefruit spill on the Florida Turnpike Wednesday. [ Screenshot ]
Published Dec. 12, 2019|Updated Dec. 12, 2019

Nearly 1,000 grapefruits rolled onto the Florida Turnpike during Wednesday afternoon traffic, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

The incident took place in, yes, Orange County.

A citrus truck was traveling north on the turnpike at about 12:50 p.m. when crates inside the vehicle broke, said Highway Patrol Lt. Kim Montes said.

The freed grapefruits oozed onto the portion of the turnpike by the State Road 50 exit in Ocoee.

“Usually when any type of produce, food, you know, any kind of load is spilled on the roadway, it’s typically from a crash or a load shifting...," Montes said. "It is not common that this happened.”

Not the citrus! 😲 A truck spilled hundreds of citrus fruit onto the turnpike in Orange County.

Posted by WESH 2 News on Wednesday, December 11, 2019

The truck pulled over so the remaining citrus could be secured. There were no injuries reported during or after the spill.

Traffic came to a standstill for about 8 minutes while state workers cleaned up the spilled grapefruit to open up the right northbound lane.

The remaining citrus cleanup made for sour traffic. Cars traveling northbound spent about three hours squeezing through a single clear lane, Montes said.

The turnpike was reported to be back to normal by about 4 p.m.