Dozens of motorists, in cluding several big-rig truckers, were stranded for hours after hitting a stretch of road covered with melted tar and rubber. Tires and transmissions were caked with pounds of the sticky goo, windshields were cracked from flying debris and drivers' tempers were flaring. It took wrecker trucks--hampered by the melted mess themselves--all afternoon to free the vehicles from the highway.
"It was a catastrophe," says Gary Priester, a state transportation department official called to the scene. The relatively experimental type of sealant, which was asphalt-based and contained tire rubber, was used in an attempt to lower costs and delay resurfacing. While the new sealant had been used successfully in Texas and Missouri, Priester notes that the mixture used on U.S. 82 was high in asphalt, making it more susceptible to heat. The state has since paid about a hundred drivers' damage claims, some for as much as $7,000.
And after the incident, DOT workers spent several days scraping the remaining sealant from the highway to prevent future problems. But as the weather cooled down and the sealant rehardened, this proved even more difficult than pulling the cars out in the first place. One member of the road crew told the local newspaper, "It's not like pulling chewing gum off anymore; it's like pulling an armadillo out of a hole."
