A jackknifed loaded log truck on East Heron Street snarled traffic through Aberdeen on Tuesday afternoon.

A mechanical issue appears to have caused the truck and loaded trailer to rest sideways in the 400 block of the roadway, just west of the Heron Street Bridge near the Les Schwab Tire Center.

“The reach — the long steel box type bar that extends back to the trailer dual axles — broke about 8 inches in front of the trailer,” said Aberdeen Police Lt. CJ Chastain. “That caused the front end of the trailer to lurch forward and to the left, and the rear end swayed hard to the left, because the load shifted down onto the left side tires of the trailer.”

The incident happened about 4 p.m. and traffic quickly began to back up through Aberdeen, and across the Chehalis River Bridge.

“It took a bit for Quigg’s to get down there with a loader, and they had to transfer the load, then pick up the trailer and broken reach, and put them up on the original truck,” said Chastain.

During that time, traffic was diverted to F Street to move east over the Heron Street Bridge. The roadway was cleared at 6:16 p.m.

Chastain praised the truck driver for keeping the rig upright with such a catastrophic reach failure.

“The lady driving the truck did a great job bringing it to a stop before it rolled,” he said. “Even though it was a huge traffic snarl, we are so fortunate nobody was hurt and no other damage occurred.”

The driver of the jackknifed log truck did an admirable job keeping the rig upright after this major failure of the reach. (Courtesy Aberdeen Police Department)