High winds, heavy rain and lightning strikes were ruled out as possible causes of a power outage which affected hundreds of residents in Crawfordsville’s west end Tuesday morning.
A large tree, located on the south side of West Wabash Avenue at the intersection with Vine Street, took out five spans of power lines in what Crawfordsville Electric Light & Power Manager Phillip Goode described as a freak occurrence.
“Must have been time for that big tree to go. It was just one of those things,” Goode said. “We had crews there within minutes of the outage. They isolated it and got a lot of the power back on.”
An estimated 300 to 400 residents along Country Club Road, Wabash Avenue and Vine and Barr streets were without power between approximately 8:30 and 10 a.m. Seventy-five residents remained without power until roughly 12:30 p.m.
Initial reports indicated a motorist was struck by falling cables as they passed underneath. The driver was advised to stay in their vehicle until crews arrived to confirm it was safe to exit.
“The circuit tripped off, which was good, but the lines landed on a car. We just wanted them to stay in that car until we got there so we can verify that everything’s de-energized,” Goode said. “The circuit went off pretty quick. When the tree hit the lines, it tripped off, it tried to restore automatically, but once it couldn’t clear the fault, [the circuit] just opened up and locked out.”
The Crawfordsville Police and Street departments assisted in the road’s temporary closure.
“The street department does a tremendous job supporting us with anything we need,” Goode said. “But it’s a freak thing, because there wasn’t that much wind, just a little bit of rain. The tree just decided to come down.”
No injuries were reported.
Safety information regarding tree trimming and removal can be found through the National Ag Safety Database at www.nasdonline.org and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at www.osha.gov.
