It was just one truck, but it created a nightmare traffic scenario for practically every arterial road in Hobart.
At 2:55pm on Monday, a truck carrying tiles rolled at the entrance to the Tasman Bridge — critical for uniting central Hobart and the CBD to the eastern shores where many people live or work.
The driver was trapped inside and had to be rescued through the windscreen.
He was taken to Royal Hobart Hospital and was in a stable condition on Monday evening.
The crash started hours upon hours of traffic drama, with some drivers not arriving home until well into the night.
How the truck flipped
What quickly became blocked?
The traffic chaos unfolds
Initially, traffic was diverted to the Bowen Bridge, further north of the city, but it soon became congested.
The congestion quickly spread throughout Hobart's suburbs, even to those nowhere near river crossings.
Maria Knight was among the thousands of workers trying to leave the Hobart CBD as 5pm rolled along.
She was aware of the traffic chaos, and decided to head through West Hobart, New Town and Moonah via back roads in an attempt to reach the Bowen Bridge.
But she said this did not help.
"I think it was just clogged everywhere," Ms Knight said.
"We crawled the whole way. All down Kalang Avenue to Barossa Road was going nowhere.
"It took me three hours to get home, which it would normally take about 40 minutes."
She said traffic lights were continuing to run as normal, and drivers were continually clogging intersections, particularly near the Bowen Bridge as drivers from every direction attempted to merge.
Kelvin left Franklin in the Huon Valley at 3:15pm to take a friend to the Hobart Airport, but it took over three hours to reach the top end of Macquarie Street in the CBD.
"This will be remembered as the day Hobart didn't have enough back ways to avoid the traffic jam," Rob Braithwaite said on the ABC Hobart Facebook page.
"It doesn't take much for Hobart to come to a standstill," Belinda Crisp said.
"If there's a prang on the bridge it causes so much trouble."
"Ninety minutes to get home instead of seven minutes. Still gridlocked both ways," said Caroline Murtagh.
"This shows how inadequate the Bowen Bridge is as an alternative while the road from that bridge to Risdon roundabout is only [a] narrow two lanes with merging situations. That piece of road needs to be upgraded to four lanes," Anne Mitchell said.
Kingston resident Jimmy told ABC Radio Hobart that he would have liked to be able to turn around after joining the queue on the Southern Outlet heading into Hobart.
"Once [you're] on the Southern Outlet there is no way off," he said.
"I would have liked to be able to turn around and return to Kingston but it wasn't possible, and this is the same problem many of us have on the feeder highways."
Car, e-scooter and hitchhike to airport to catch flight
Chris Robson was one of many people trying to make it through the city and over the Tasman Bridge to get to Hobart Airport to catch a flight.
He initially thought he had a few hours to spare when he and a friend set off from Franklin for Hobart Airport on Monday afternoon, but his journey took a few turns.
They were gridlocked on the Southern Outlet and it took several hours to reach the start of Macquarie Street. With the clock ticking, Mr Robson spotted an e-scooter on a map on his phone.
He quickly downloaded the app and ran over, but it had already been taken. He found another scooter, and so with several heavy bags — including bottles of cider for his wife — he took off.
Traffic was still at a standstill when he reached the Tasman Bridge, but the scooter did not allow him to cross it, so he turned around.
He parked the scooter, noticing that traffic was slowly starting to move.
"I ran back to the road, and stuck my thumb out, and within 30 seconds some bloke waved me over and I jumped in, and he said, 'Where are you going mate?'
I said, 'Trying to catch a plane.' He said, 'Oh, I'll just take you there mate.'"
As he ran into the airport terminal, he was greeted by news his flight was delayed.
Mr Robson even had time for a beer before heading home to Sydney.
Public transport helped a few
The car-heavy city has few public transport options beyond buses, but extra Derwent River ferry services were put on to help cope with demand.
Bikes and pedestrians could also still make their way across the 1.3-kilometre Tasman Bridge via the shared pathway.
Trin Suzannah, from the ABC Hobart Facebook page, had less luck with a bus, saying it took the driver "three hours to get to town from Eastlands" — about a 5-kilometre trip.
Truck debris not cleared until late
In the end, it took until about 7:30pm for police to reopen the bridge after the truck was righted, towed away and the debris was cleaned up.
But congestion on the major motorways still stretched on well into the evening, even after traffic began to trickle across the bridge.
Tasmania Police Sergeant Mel Taplin said an investigation would look at how the rollover happened.
"There're several factors that we will be looking at, and that includes speed, inattention and obviously the security of the load that the truck was actually carrying," she told ABC Radio Hobart.
"Sometimes these freak accidents happen by a combination of those things but we will be investigating that."
