Ocean Storm Delivers Doritos to Beach Combers

A container ship carrying Doritos snack chips was caught in a storm and, to the delight of junk-food lovers, boxes of the chips ended up strewn on a North Carolina beach.

DEBORAH AMOS, host:

Today's last word in business pits a powerful Atlantic storm against a giant ship carrying Doritos. A newspaper called the Virginian Pilot, first told us the story of Courtney L.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

The ship was on its way to Central America when it got caught in a nor'easter off the Virginia coast. Four of the ships containers got knocked off the boat. One came ashore on a beach in North Carolina.

AMOS: Bad Guiest(ph) was the first park ranger on the scene:

Mr. BAD GUIEST (Park Ranger): When I showed up there were people getting boxes of Doritos. And the container had washed up, which is about the equivalent of a semi tractor-trailer and it was full of cases of Doritos.

AMOS: News of the Doritos tide spread quickly and Guiest had no trouble finding volunteers to clean up the mess.

Mr. GUIEST: People brought out trash bags and they were filling them up with the bags of Doritos that were still good. Some of them had gotten wet but most of them were still sealed.

INSKEEP: Wonder how long it'll take them to make a commercial of this. The Coast Guard is now on the look out for three other containers. We are sorry report, though, that only one of them has food.

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

AMOS: And I'm Deborah Amos.

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