Casey Holihan was stuck on Interstate 95 in Virginia with her husband for about nine hours during the traffic disaster Tuesday morning when she had a unique idea while staring at a bakery truck in front of her.
Holihan decided to give the company a call and ask if she could have some food from the truck, because she had not eaten in more than 24 hours.
“I just explained the situation to them and where we were,” Holihan said.
It worked.
Chuck Paterakis, one of the owners of Schmidt Baking Company in Baltimore, got the message and gave his truck driver permission to start giving out bread.
“I said, ‘Sure I think it’s a great idea,'” Paterakis explained. “I said, ‘There are a lot of people asking for bread, so would you mind helping them out so they can eat?'”
Holihan was grateful.
“The second he opened that truck he started handing us loaves of bread,” Holihan said.
But Holihan didn’t only take some for her and her husband. She knew there were a lot of hungry people all around her who were also stuck in traffic, so she helped distribute bread to 50 other cars.
“Just seeing the peoples’ faces light up when they saw us was really incredible,” Holihan said.
Holihan estimated that she and her husband were stuck on I-95 for roughly 16 hours before they were able to get off the highway.
The interstate fully reopened Tuesday night after more than a day of blockage, which caused havoc for thousands of commuters who were trapped on the roadway in the Stafford County area following Monday’s snowstorm that led to multiple crashes on I-95.
Vehicles were at a standstill, some for 24 hours, shutting off their engines in frigid weather to conserve dwindling fuel, many with little to no food or water.
