{"id":819702,"date":"2026-08-20T08:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/819702\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T08:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:40:11","slug":"20-tons-of-slimy-squid-spill-on-rhode-island-roadway-blanketing-area-in-foul-odor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/819702\/","title":{"rendered":"20 tons of slimy squid spill on Rhode Island roadway \u2014 blanketing area in foul odor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve got to be squiding me! <\/p>\n<p>A tractor-trailer spilled 20 tons of squid onto a busy Rhode Island roadway Sunday morning \u2014 stinking up the surrounding area in what local authorities have dubbed the \u201cSquidpocalypse of \u201826.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The smelly squiduation began around 9:30 a.m. when the truck, which was headed to an out-of-town processing facility, dislodged and flipped on its side as the driver made a turn on the Narragansett street.<\/p>\n<p>The mishap left the intersection covered in mountains of slimy sea creatures.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.7716263;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40422935\" width=\"1024\" height=\"578\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP_Squid_Spill_97788-576ec-0.jpg\" alt=\"Overturned truck spilling large quantities of squid onto a city street.\" class=\"wp-image-40422935\"\/>Workers clean squid from a roadway in Narragansett, R.I., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. AP<\/p>\n<p>Richard Stevens, a Narragansett resident and local fisherman, told WJAR that the odor was unmistakable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSquid has a distinctive odor to it,\u201d he noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt can be very foul-smelling, especially if it lands on the road and stays there for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the sun beat down on the piles of calamari and temperatures reached above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the ink-credible scent became overpowering.<\/p>\n<p>Narragansett Police Capt. Ryan Prest confirmed there were no injuries to the driver or a passenger, but the scene \u201cstarted to smell bad as the squid sat out in the sun for a few hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The tentacle cleanup took nearly the whole day. The intersection remained closed until 5:15 p.m. as crews got kraken on the slimy mess. <\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.7716263;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40422943\" width=\"1024\" height=\"578\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-19-at-90340-PM.jpg\" alt=\"Squid covering a road, spilled from a blue container.\" class=\"wp-image-40422943\"\/>A truckload of squid spills into the street, creating a smelly mess in the summer heat in Rhode Island. AP<\/p>\n<p>Heavy equipment and a dump truck were eventually brought in to haul away the slippery cargo.<\/p>\n<p>The Narragansett Police Department made light of the situation in a social media post on Wednesday, stating that the town is still recovering from the \u201cSquidpocalypse of \u201926 \u2014 the spill that put \u2018slippery when wet\u2019 to shame.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rhode Island State Police and the Narragansett Police Department did not immediately responded to The Post\u2019s requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With Post wires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve got to be squiding me! A tractor-trailer spilled 20 tons of squid onto a busy Rhode Island&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[37176,18211,1861,880,79,34518,250803,194,201],"class_list":["post-819702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-car-crashes","tag-fish","tag-fishing","tag-rhode-island","tag-science","tag-seafood","tag-truckers","tag-us-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}