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Transportation
Tim Nelson

Across frozen rural Minnesota highway, the beets went on

First, it was potatoes frozen on the road. Now? Sugar beets

A highway lit up by headlights shows a spill of beets.
The Swift County Sheriff's Office posted this photo of beets spilled on a highway near Murdoch Wednesday night, calling them "basically just rocks." The Sheriff's Department said several vehicles were damaged driving through the spill until a MnDOT snowplow came and cleared off the roadway on Wednesday night.
Courtesy of Swift County Sheriff's Office

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Updated: 8:25 a.m.

It was bitterly cold in west-central Minnesota Wednesday night, with temperatures falling well below zero in the afternoon and wind chills touching minus 25 degrees after dark.  

Then near Murdock, about 20 miles west of Willmar, it went from bad — to beets. 

A truck full of sugar beets spilled part of its load, leaving U.S. Highway 12 west of Murdock scattered with thousands of “basically just rocks,” according to a warning posted on Facebook by the Swift County Sheriff’s Office. 

Sugar beets typically weigh between 2 and 5 pounds, according to the American Sugar Beet Growers Association and the temperature was nearing 10 below zero in the area at the time of the spill.

The sheriff’s office said the frozen vegetables damaged some vehicles that had driven through the spill before deputies closed the road. 

The warning prompted some pun-riddled responses on social media: “Don’t sugar coat it,” read one comment. Someone else posted a Michael Jackson GIF headlined “Just Beat It.” 

The Minnesota Department of Transportation responded quickly, using a plow to push the beets out of the traffic lane and onto the shoulder, a MnDOT spokesperson said. Traffic resumed shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday. 

The spill comes two weeks after a crash on Interstate 94 near Albertville spilled a truckload of potatoes, which also froze on the highway. MnDOT brought in front-end loaders to scrape the spuds away and get traffic moving.