SCOTT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — After more than 24 hours, a downed utility pole in Scott County has been fixed, and a busy road has been opened again.
It was a congested mess for drivers in Scott County this weekend after a downed utility pole closed Paris Pike in Georgetown.
Michael Hennigan, the director of the Scott County Emergency Management, explains a vehicle hit the AT&T telephone pole around 1:30 Saturday afternoon, causing the utility line to sag. The accident was not weather-related and no details have been shared on the driver of the vehicle.
Not even an hour after the pole was hit, a tractor-trailer with an extra tall exhaust pipe caught the sagged utility line and broke a Kentucky Utilities pole bringing all of the lines down.
"If they don't get it fixed before the morning when Toyota traffic comes, because at like quarter-to-five or five-thirty this road's pretty busy coming from the Paris area," said Tom Fister, one of the residents who was affected by the road closure. "Well I feel sorry for everybody that's gonna be driving the road tomorrow during the early morning hours and all day long and just like yesterday after the accident."
"It's a very common highway. So with this road closed we would be having people on small two-lane roads trying to find their own detours. It would probably gridlock Georgetown trying to figure out where everybody got to and get them back on the big roads," explains Hennigan.
Nobody's power had gone out and nobody's phone lines were affected, but the road was closed to drivers for 36 hours. Hennigan says he contacted AT&T for hours to get them to fix the issue.
"Finally about one o'clock this afternoon it finally came to a head that we couldn't be closed any longer were gonna have to come up with something to open up the road," Hennigan describes. "Luckily, after using resources from Frankfort and other places, we were able to get to the right people at AT&T that could expedite this repair."
By 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, AT&T workers finally made it out to Paris Pike where the down utility pole was to start working on it.
As of 7:40 p.m. Sunday, the pole was fixed, and the road was back open to drivers before the morning commute took over.
However, Hennigan says drivers still need to be more careful.
"This road has very little shoulders on it. There's not an awful lot of room for error. So we always tell people, please make sure you have good following distance," stresses Hennigan. "Make sure your tires are good, your wipers are good and just be especially careful if you know the temperature is below 32. It might look like dry but there might be spots of ice and things like that."
