Murtland Avenue finally reopens after rig takes down utility poles
A section of Murtland Avenue in Washington finally reopened to traffic Thursday afternoon after being shut down 24 hours earlier when a tractor-trailer tore down three utility poles, knocking out power to businesses and residents in the area.
“A tractor-trailer was preparing to go into Budd Baer like they normally do,” Washington Mayor JoJo Burgess said Thursday. “The electric company thinks because of the extreme heat, the wires may have been sagging and that truck caught those wires and pulled the wires and poles down that created the situation that we had.”
Initially, a small fire erupted in the middle of the street when the wires dropped. Washington fire Chief Chris Richer said insulation had burned through a transformer and was quickly doused.
“Emergency units shut down the road immediately and diverted traffic,” he said. Firefighters remained on the scene for about two hours, mainly to handle crowd control.
Todd Meyers, West Penn Power Co. spokesman, said about 600 customers were without power initially, a number that was reduced to about 200 as a result of “switching,” using adjacent power lines to supply electricity during an outage.
The majority of the remaining 200 customers had their power restored by late Wednesday evening. Budd Baer remained closed Thursday.
“Our claims department will be doing a thorough investigation to get to the root of the cause,” Meyers said.
Among those on the scene Wednesday were Washington’s police, fire and street departments, as well as Washington Ambulance & Chair.
“Our first responders and the professionals at the electric company did a phenomenal job,” Burgess said.