Roaming Pigs Temporarily Shut Down Busy Texas Interstate

You don’t see something like this every day, pigs roaming free on a section of a busy Texas interstate highway.

On Thursday, a fiery accident caused a semi-trailer that was carrying a load of live pigs that collided with two other vehicles including another eighteen-wheeler, to release its four-legged cargo.

The resulting chaos led to pigs on the loose and authorities had to shut down traffic during the morning rush hour until the animals could be recaptured and the mess cleaned up.

According to Dallas-Ft. Worth CBS affiliate CBSDFW “I-45 Closed After Semi Carrying Hogs Crashes, Catches Fire”:

An 18-wheeler carrying a load of pigs crashed during rush hour early Thursday morning on Interstate-45, closing the roadway in both directions.

The crash involved two 18-wheelers and a car. One big rig crashed into the center median on the highway around 6:30 a.m., turning on it’s side and bursting into flames. The driver of that semi was able to get out before the fire and wasn’t injured. No one in the other 18-wheeler or the car was injured.

This morning Lieutenant Eric Pon, with the Wilmer Police Department, said they’re were still trying to figure out what caused the accident, but that they had to deal with hundreds of animals. “We had a total of 195 [on the semi]. We do not know how many dead-loss or how many ran off,” he said.

At one point the pigs were all over the road. “We’ve had ‘em stretched for about three to four miles down the freeway and believe we’ve got most of them corralled now,” Pon said adding, “The biggest challenge we’ve had so far was just corraling the pigs, keeping ‘em from getting into oncoming traffic and getting run over — but I do believe we’ve got all of them.”

The following video is from CBSDFW TV:

The animals that weren’t killed in the accident will eventually become ham, bacon and pork chops.

Again, this isn’t something that you see every day.