Pope apologises but not all Twitterati ready to forgive

A tweet on tumbleweed piles blocking a US highway on New Year's eve set the Twitter abuzz, drawing some amusing and tongue-in-cheek responses from the users.

The highway -- approximately 20 km west of Richland city in Washington state -- was closed at around 6.30 p.m. (local time) on December 31 as giant balls of dry plants rising up to 20-30 feet high blocked both sides of the road.

State Route 240 was opened only after nearly 10 hours by authorities even as some stranded drivers ushered in the New Year trapped under weeds, Sky News reported.

Trooper Chris Thorson of Washington state patrol was quoted that five cars and one truck were trapped in the tumbleweeds, an incident he dubbed "tumblegeddon".

Thorson posted on Twitter handle @wspd3pio: "#tumblegeddon. After 10 hours of SR 240 being closed last night on New Year's Eve, it was opened around 0430 thanks to @WSDOT_East. We still have one abandoned car trapped in the tumbleweeds that was found at daylight, luckily no one was in it."

The pile-up was so thick that snow ploughs were used to clear the road. Nobody was injured and there were no collisions.

The clip posted on January 1 got 159.9K views, 775 retweets and 1.8K likes.

Washington State Department of Transportation tweeted: "Big thanks to our crews who spent all #NewYearsEve2020 dealing with tumbleweeds. Which, in a million years, was not something I expected to start the year tweeting about."

One user commented on the incident: "Some days you just have to let it roll."

Another said: "That's a first for an East Coaster here, definitely something new to me. When I first saw the plows, I thought it was an avalanche. Glad no one was injured in tumblegeddon 2020."

One user tweeted: "How many are Radioactive??"

A Twitter user said with his tongue firmly in his cheek: "Abandoned cars usually don't have anyone in them."

"Holy smokies!!!! That's a lot of tumbleweeds," read one post.

One user recalled: "I grew up east of San Diego and miss the days of watching huge tumbleweeds roll down our street. #Tumblegeddon."

A user wanted to know: "Finders keepers, Trooper? - IANS