Cleanup in Lane 5: Toilet paper spill blocks traffic in Santa Clarita

It’s no secret that too much toilet paper can clog your pipes. But now there’s proof that it can clog a freeway too.

On Monday, commuters passing through Santa Clarita on the southbound 5 Freeway found themselves backed up behind hundreds of rolls of toilet paper. The incident occurred around 1:30 p.m., when a pickup truck going south dropped cases of the stuff onto the road, blocking the lanes merging onto Interstate 5 from Lyons Avenue, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Spokesperson Joshua Greengard from the Newhall CHP office said officers responded to the 911 call in minutes and were able to clear the two right lanes that were blocked in about half an hour.

“We put in a call for a cleanup by Caltrans,” said Greengard. “They said it was going to take a couple of hours, so then the officers took the initiative to move it.” Officials reported that there were five to six industrial-sized boxes that had split open, unleashing the cascade of bathroom tissue .

Overhead footage from a local Fox News station shows three officers picking up the stray rolls by hand and tossing them over into a closed section of the highway to remove them from traffic lanes. Some rolls could be seen unraveling in the wind and bouncing down the highway into oncoming cars.

“They tried to move the toilet paper into more of the construction area where it was confined,” said Greengard. “So they can kind of pick it up later and not have the whole incident with the cleanup blocking traffic.”

Caltrans District 7 did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.

Observers online were quick on the puns while commenting on the news. “That’s one crappy way to wipe away someone’s commute,” one user on the social media platform X wrote.