Mark Albrecht, project manager for Emmert International, said the specialized trailer his firm would use makes it almost impossible that the giant drum could tumble off into the river below. "The trailer was specifically chosen for this route and this load," he said. "That trailer would have to go completely sideways to where it's falling over for that load to come out."

If a drum were to fall in the river, he said, it'd be ruined, because it'd no longer be perfectly round. So it could then be cut into 30,000-pound pieces, winched out and loaded onto standard trucks; Emmert wouldn't attempt to lift the entire drum in a single piece, so it wouldn't need a huge crane.