Traffic paralyzed; 26 cattle die after truck turns over on I-74

Carnage and misery everywhere...!

I've returned from my trip, at least as far as my office. I hope to make it to my actual home within a few hours.

Yesterday my son and I traveled from my grandmother's home in western Illinois to my son's home in eastern South Carolina, more or less straight through.

It's the less part that I must share with you, dear reader.

We were making pretty good time when, outside Cincinnati, traffic suddenly crawled to a near-stop. We all hate when that happens, don't we? After a half hour or so of inching forward, the line of traffic gave up the pretense and we all just stopped. Once it became clear that forward movement wasn't going to resume any time soon, my son decided to get out of the car and ask the trucker next to us what was going on, since of course truckers always know what's happening on the road.

A few minutes later, my son returned and turned off the engine.

"It's going to be a while," he said. "A cattle truck overturned and they're busy shooting cattle up there."

A tractor-trailer carrying cattle rolled over early Wednesday morning, turning Interstate 74 into a cattle range and delaying the morning commutes of tens of thousands of motorists, some for hours.

The single-truck accident left 26 cattle dead, shut Interstate 74 and a 2½-mile section of Interstate 275 for more than 10 hours and caused gridlock on local roads throughout western Hamilton County.

Officials closed the two highways because they worried the 13 surviving cattle were spooked and could dart in and out of traffic.

(Video here.)

Sheriff deputies and volunteers -- some on horseback -- rounded up five but resorted to shooting the others when they could not capture them after hours of trying.

Most of the animals had been rounded up in the morning but got away.

We were lucky enough to reach our exit before we reached the intersection where, indeed, amateurs were trying to herd cattle on the interstate and were, indeed, shooting cattle.

It was still a bad day for the thirteen cattle who survived the accident; they continued their trip...to the slaughterhouse.

We, on the other hand, made it home just fine.