New Fear Unlocked – Car Goes Airborne After Flat Road Suddenly Turns Into Ramp as a Result of a Heatwave in Missouri
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – A video is circulating throughout social media as a road buckled under this weekend’s intense heat in a second, causing a car to go airborne.
The video, taken by Albert Blackwell, shows several cars passing over what first was a small bump. It was marked by a construction sign and a cone in the middle of the road near the Honda dealership in Cape Girardeau.
Later in the video, that bump had visibly grown. As one car passes on the other side, the road suddenly shifted and buckled just a split second before another car reached it, forcing the vehicle to fly into the air.
When we experience extreme heat, roads can crack, buckle, or warp, according to MoDOT.
They told FOX 2 in a former report that this happens when a crack in the roadway has moisture that’s seeped in, forcing the crack to grow and expand. The pavement gets to be weaker from the crack, the heat then causes the road to buckle and warp.
MoDOT says it never truly knows when or where a pavement buckle may occur, but when it gets hot outside, there is potential everywhere.
"Hot one today, huh?"
"Sure is. Just caught a few feet of air coming down Mercer Ave."
That's a fun to thing to have in the back of your mind as you're driving on a hot summer's day. This is why you don't text and drive folks. You might think there's nothing but clear road ahead of you, but you never know when out of fucking nowhere, the flat earth will spontaneously turn into a pretty ideal sized car ramp, causing your vehicle to catch some unexpected air outside the Honda Dealership in Cape Girardeau.
Today that I learned that extreme heat can cause roads to buckle almost instantly. That area of Missouri was reportedly experiencing a heatwave that saw temperatures of up to 106 degrees. Apparently, when that's the case, the road is liable to explode.
Based on the previously placed traffic cone and road sign (and the fact that some dude named Albert Blackwell was just sitting there with his camera, seemingly waiting for some poor sucker to drive past as the pefectly wrong time) clearly the road had already began to buckle. I'm guessing the city of Cape Girardeau was thinking that was as bad as the road would get. Or were just crossing their fingers that when the road really popped, there wouldn't be a Toyota Corolla cruising down the street about 5 yards from the point of their town's brand new street ramp.
Fucking Albert Blackwell. That cheeky bastard. Just posted up taking videos waiting for something to happen. I suppose the warning sign was already there on the side of the road. I'm not sure what else he could have done other than personally stand along the road and wave at people to slow down to a complete crawl. Nobody can be expected to be that good of a samaritan. But still... sitting there with your camera just waiting for the road to explode on a busy-ish street... that's kinda of a hilarious move. Great video, Al. Glad nobody appears to be hurt. And it looks like the car may even have come out of there unscathed. That's great too. I'm not sure how well that one would go over with your car insurance.