A semi-truck hauling a large windmill blade on a trailer was attempting to make some tricky turns in downtown Crookston on Monday afternoon.
The truck, a white Peterbilt, is hauling a long blade from a wind turbine initially attempted to make a sharp, 90-degree turn from the westbound lane of Robert Street onto the northbound lanes of Broadway Street in Crookston. The turbine blade alone was 74 meters in length or 242 feet, which Crookston Police Lieutenant Darin Selzler said filled an entire city block. “Apparently a semi hauling one of those big windmill turbines for the electrical power units came through Crookston,” said Selzler. “It was definitely a full city block. It came up into Crookston and got stuck or pinned at the intersection on E Robert between Broadway and Ash Street. There was an escort of at least four state trooper cars and two pilot cars. Because of the size of the load, we had to have the semi back all the way down East Robert to Todd’s Tire where they had to back in to turn around to head out east on Highway 2. They’re going to go on the Highway 2 bypass north of Crookston.”
The truck had to back up approximately 1.2 miles before it could turn around and was being escorted by two pilot vehicles and several non-local state patrol vehicles. Selzler said an oversized load is given the route it should take in its permit which brought it into downtown Crookston, which no one involved with moving the load could’ve known wouldn’t be possible. “It sounds like with the six cars helping them they should get by,” said Selzler. “My understanding is that they’re issued permits and the permits specifically guide them on the route they’re supposed to take. I don’t think it was the driver or pilot cars fault, that was just the route they were given when they were issued those permits. I think they should be able to make it when they get to the north end of town.”
Traffic in both directions on East Robert was shut down in both directions for over an hour. Fairfax Avenue was also closed for about an hour from Washington Avenue to East Robert. There were several blocks of cars lined up in several directions waiting for the roads to close because many drivers were from out of town and didn’t know how to navigate around the closure said, Selzler. “It seemed like we had every semi that could possibly come through including semis hauling combines and everything,” said Selzler. “It seemed like every car I talked to was from out of town, so they didn’t really know how to back around. And there wasn’t an easy way around. We had all four lanes of Highway 2 shut down for a while and everybody seemed to be going east. There. for an hour or so, we had cars blocked off several blocks in every direction, so we were pretty excited when we got the road back open and could start pushing cars and trucks back through.”
Two street signs also had to be temporarily removed on the corner of East Robert and Fairfax so the truck could turn around. Both signs were returned once the truck was heading back toward the Gentilly bypass.
Video of the semi backing up East Robert is below –
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