ARCHBOLD WEATHER

Sunday Power Outage Caused By Car Crash




An early Sunday morning car crash on the north side of Archbold knocked out electricity to more than 1,900 customers, a Toledo Edison spokesman said.

The Archbold police report on the crash states Tyler Lee Randall, 21, rural Archbold, was driving a car west in the 300 block of West Lutz Road at about 1:56 am, when the vehicle went out of control.

Randall’s vehicle jumped the curb on the north side of the road, slid sideways through the North Pointe Drive intersection, and hit a Toledo Edison utility pole with the right rear portion of the car.

The car continued west, where it came to rest in the westbound lane of West Lutz Road.

Police estimate the car was traveling 50 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone when the wreck occurred.

Shattered

Andy Brodbeck, Archbold Fire Department chief, said when Randall’s vehicle struck the pole, the pole shattered.

Also damaged were insulators near the top of the pole where there were highvoltage electrical lines.

Brodbeck said the lines are a major part of the electricity distribution system for the area known as a feeder.

The damaged insulators caused a fire at the top of the pole.

Firefighters were called to the scene at about 2:30 am, but because high-voltage electricity was still flowing through the wires, they could not fight the fire.

“All we can do is get hold of the power company and keep people away,” Brodbeck said.

Power Out

At around 3:15 am, one of the high-voltage wires burned through, and the wire dropped to the ground.

That, Brodbeck said, caused the transformer to fail, and power was knocked out.

Automatic circuits in the TE system reset circuit breakers and power was briefly restored, but Brodbeck said the wind picked up and blew two wires together. That knocked out power for a second time.

Power again reset.

Once TE workers arrived on the scene, they had to cut power a third time to effect temporary repairs, Brodbeck said.

A TE spokesman said 1,902 customers were out of power for about 20 minutes; another 71 customers were out about two hours.

The spokesman could not define the impacted area.

Reports from the community say at one point, the entire village and part of the surrounding rural area saw their digital clocks flashing when they awoke later that morning.

Tera Rogers, a police offi- cer, said Randall was taken to the Fulton County Health Center by Archbold Rescue, where he was treated and released.

He was then transported to the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, where he was booked on charges of DUI, failure to control, and failure to wear a seat belt.

He is currently free on bond.



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