A vehicle merging onto the 10 West this morning swerved into the path of the wrong big rig.

CHP Officer Kerri Ribas says just after 8 a.m., a car on the Vincent Avenue on-ramp “went out of control” — causing a semi in the slow lane to topple and spill its load all over the freeway.

The precious cargo?

Nineteen-thousand pounds of dog food.

Crews originally thought they could offload the spilled dog food in two hours. But around 10 a.m., unsurprisingly, they had to declare a new SigAlert for an additional hour of clearing. (Not sure why they didn't just unleash the hungry tenants of the nearby Baldwin Park Animal Shelter on the spill. Two birds, one stone!)

The far-right lane and the on-ramp will be closed until about 12 p.m., says Ribas, as a tow truck tries to right the felled beast.

The scene of the crash, in West Covina:


View Larger Map

Anyway, we were naturally curious as to how crews did manage to sweep up all the kibble.

Ribas says she's not sure whether the trucking company came to offload it into another vehicle (aka, salvage it — three-hour rule?), or how, exactly, it would have otherwise been removed from the freeway.

So until some Good Samaritan sends us pics/video, we'll just keep imagining an on-ramp full of loose dog chow being swept up frantically by CHP workers with brooms and dustpans.

Don't you love it when it rains in Los Angeles?

[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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