Mother's Day is Sunday, and you might be sweating it if you haven't yet mailed your card.
Well, you won't get any convenient excuses from the mail truck crash early Friday in Omaha.
The U.S. Postal Service semitractor-trailer that crashed and burned didn't contain any Mother's Day cards or other first-class mail, said Keith Reid, Omaha postmaster.
All it contained was junk mail and magazines and other periodicals. Mail was for delivery to Lincoln-area ZIP codes starting with 683, 684 and 685, Reid said.
“People can't use the ‘Sorry, Mom, it was on the truck' excuse,” Reid said.
The truck was headed from Des Moines to Lincoln, and the mail would have been delivered Saturday or early next week, he said.
Jim Berryman, a former Lincoln resident, was relieved when he learned the truck didn't contain Mother's Day cards.
He lives in Connecticut and had sent two Mother's Day cards to Lincoln and one to Grand Island.
“Wouldn't it be my luck if the cards burned?” he said.
Reid said some of the mail might be salvageable and will be put back in the mail.
If you don't get a certain magazine, call the magazine's customer service line, he said. Companies typically will send another one at no cost if you explain the circumstances.
The accident on Interstate 80 shut down westbound I-80 near the interchange with Interstate 480 and U.S. 75. The closure lasted through much of the morning commute.
The crash sent the driver to Creighton University Medical Center with minor injuries, according to Douglas County emergency dispatch and the Omaha Fire Department.
Exactly how the crash occurred was not known.
What was known is this: The semi somehow jackknifed and caught fire about 1 a.m. Truck and trailer were ablaze. Diesel fuel spilled onto the roadway.
By 2 a.m. firefighters had the fire in the cab out but were still working on the trailer. Smoke could be smelled from a half-mile away.
World-Herald staff writers Andrew J. Nelson and Jessica Lavicky contributed to this report.
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