Will it be a thirsty weekend?

On Highway 5, South of Kamloops

I was in Kamloops recently. While out for a ride on my bicycle, I came across this scene about 20 kilometres from the centre of town. One lane of the road was blocked as there had been an accident. As you can see in the above photo, the wheel of a vehicle got off the edge of the pavement and into the dirt on the soft shoulder.The driver was not able to recover, the load shifted, and the vehicle rolled into the ditch. This happened at about 6:00 PM on dry pavement. The driver was injured, broken arm and broken collarbone, but was otherwise unhurt and was out of the hospital by the next day. I came across this scene at about 10:00 AM and the driver had been there about 30 minutes before. So, what was the vehicle carrying?

The contents of the trailer

Clean up in progress

Some of the inventory restacked and ready to ship

It was full of President's Choice Cola bound for the Real Canadian Superstore in Kamloops. Once the wheels went off the pavement, and the trailer tilted, the load shifted to the right hand (ditch) side of the trailer and the situation was irreversible. The truck and trailer rolled onto their right hand side and the trailer exploded.

By the time I got there the clean up had been going on for over 12 hours. (As evidenced by the generator and lights visible on the bank on the far side of the ditch, and the empty pizza boxes.

The truck had been towed away, although for some reason its windscreen remained by the side of the road. And the base of the trailer had also been removed. In the picture above you can see that all that remains of the trailer is the right hand wall and the roof. The floor and wheels, rear door, left wall, and front were all removed and taken away.

So here are a few questions;

1. What will happen to all of the cola? It has been shaken and while the cans and boxes are not too obviously damaged, will the cans explode when opened, showering the customer with cola? How long will it take the carbonation to "settle down"?
2. This accident happened on the Wednesday before a long weekend. How quickly did the store manager react to this and what actions did they take? Were they expecting the truck full of cola for the weekend rush? Did they fill in by stocking up with Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola?
3. How quickly could the supplier, Cott, replace the order? Cott has production facilities in Calgary, Alberta and Surrey, British Columbia. Both are less than a day' drive from Kamloops. Although a full truck holds thousands of cases of cola, I would guess that Cott could produce  that amount in no more than a few hours. The question is, did they have the right flavour concentrate on hand, and what other orders would they have to juggle to fit this replacement order into the production schedule.

I'll probably never have answers to these questions, but I'm curious none the less. The next time I'm in Kamloops I'll drop by the Superstore and see if I can speak to the manager. Even in the hectic world of retail, I'm sure that they'll remember this event.