17-TON CONCRETE BLOCK FALLS ONTO ROUTE 28
By Patricia Breakey
Delhi News Bureau

Oneonta Daily Star, NY
May 17 2007

A truck hauling a massive concrete box rounded a curve on state Route
28 in Meredith on Tuesday morning and lost its load, Delaware County
sheriff’s deputy Kim Smith said Wednesday.

John C. Alcantara, 47, of Apalachin, was ticketed for having an
improperly secured load after the 35,000-pound concrete block shifted,
snapping the support straps, and tumbled off the trailer, Smith said.

Smith said that when she was sent to the accident, she was told a
concrete septic tank had fallen off a truck, but she never anticipated
having to deal with the rectangular box that was 13 feet long,
7? feet wide and 7? feet high.

"It was huge, it was just huge," Smith said.

She said the concrete tank made two ruts in the pavement when it fell
off the truck that were 6-to-8 inches deep and about 14 feet long.

The tank then bounced and landed in the westbound lane, where it sank
2 to 3 feet deep into the pavement before bouncing again, mangling
a tree and causing a huge indentation in the bank beside the road,
she said. It finally came to rest on the pavement, blocking the
westbound lane.

Smith said the truck carrying the concrete tank was on its way to
Camp Nubar on Fall Clove Road in Andes. It is an Armenian children’s
summer camp.

Smith said when she found out the magnitude of the problem she was
dealing with, she asked that LaFever Excavating and Payne’s Cranes
be contacted to help move the tank. She added she then discovered
that both companies were waiting at Camp Nubar to install it.

Smith said it took about four hours to get the tank off the highway
and on its way again.

"It was a very unusual incident," she said.

The Meridale and Franklin Fire Departments, state Department of
Transportation and Meredith Town Highway Department also assisted at
the scene. No injuries were reported.