Power Back Up on Seaview Ave. [Update]

Update 8:29 p.m.:

Third Taxing District utility crews restored electricity service to the Vantage Point apartment building at about 5:30, district General Manager George Leary said this evening.

Pastime Club again had electricity at about the same time, he said, and shortly after that, the Harbor Lights restaurant, also on Seaview Avenue. By 6 p.m. all customers on the street again had power, Leary said. Power had been out since just before 1 p.m. Monday, 29 hours before.

Update 3:47 p.m.:

Utility officials now expect power to return to residents of the Vantage Point apartment building by early evening, and all five poles have been replaced on Seaview Avenue.

With the new poles up, utility crews from the Third Taxing District as well as Cablevision and AT&T are restoring various lines in the affected area of Seaview Avenue between First Avenue in the south and the at 59 East Ave., just north of the intersection of East and Seaview avenues.

The poles snapped and wires were damaged after a truck snagged a telephone line Monday and pulled them down. Although witnesses said the event occurred at 1:10 p.m., Norwalk Police were called from the Pastime Club at 12:54 p.m., according to dispatch records.

The priority for restoring power will be the residential building, said George Leary, general manager of the Third Taxing District, the electric utility serving the neighborhood and East Norwalk. After that, the Harbor Light restaurant, the East Norwalk Yachting and Boating Club and the Pastime Club will get power restored, he said.

"By tonight we should have everybody back, unless there are problems we don't know about," Leary said Tuesday afternoon. "We have two underground cables that are feeding two customers and that could be damaged, and we won't know until we energize them."

Leary had no estimate on how much the incident will cost the utility other than to say, "It's going to be many thousands of dollars." Insurance doesn't pay for this kind of event, he said. "Now, if we find the trucker, we can make a claim."

Leary said he had no knowledge of a wire hanging particularly low in the area, and he knew of no utility crews from AT&T or Cablevision doing work on the wires in the neighborhood. The wire "had been there for years, and nobody hit it," he said, "so you really wonder why something hit it."

There was a brisk wind on Monday, with the National Weather Service predicting winds from the south of 14 to 16 mph, but gusts of up to 33 mph, and in some photographs of the scene, a flag can be seen fluttering stiffly in the breeze.

A crew from the Third District was working on Seaview Avenue the morning before the incident, he said, but that was well up the street, much closer to Veterans Park, he said. Their work would not have lowered or affected the position of the communications wire which was snagged by the truck, he said.

Leary said that based on the original location of the communications wire, he believed the truck had entered the southern end of Seaview Avenue from First Avenue and then came into contact with the wire near the intersection of Seaview and East avenues. Witnesses said the truck stopped for a time, then drove on.

A couple of years ago, a truck hit a cable television line on Gregory Boulevard and broke a single pole, Leary said. Perhaps the damage was so much more extensive  in Monday's incident because the driver "had a running start," he said. "Normally, it doesn't go like that. I think it's just the particular configuration there that allowed that to happen.

Editor's note: Video of crews working on the wreckage Monday has now been added to this article.

Update 5:41 p.m. (with minor additions, 6:49 a.m., Tuesday):

The Vantage Point apartment building at 100 Seaview Ave. remained without power and dark late Monday afternoon as utility crews trucked in massive poles to replace some of the five that snapped earlier in the day.

The Harbor Lights restaurant had no lights.

The poles snapped at about 1:10 p.m. when a truck that one witness described as a large 18-wheeler snagged a low-hanging telephone wire on Seaview Avenue. That pulled down thick utility wires which broke the poles. No one was reported hurt in the accident.

The witness, William Sullivan Jr., said the driver stopped the truck for about 15 minutes, then drove off before police or anyone else in authority arrived. Others at the Pastime Club also saw the truck. A Pepsi delivery truck also stopped at the scene, then drove off. Crews from some utility had been working in the area of the downed wire earlier in the day, Sullivan said.

Bobby Lanphier of Norwalk was in the Pastime Club when he saw two brilliant flashes shine through the half-closed venetian blinds of the club's windows. "Then a boom! boom! boom!" he said.

Brian DeMarco, a resident of the blacked-out apartment building, said he was driving home when a friend told him over the phone, "You're not going to believe what happened."

Intersections leading into Seaview Avenue from Osborne in the north, East Avenue in the midde and First Street in the south, along with Seaview itself, were blocked by police by the time DeMarco arrived. He parked on a side street and walked up to the apartment building with a bottle of wine.

"I've got a friend with a hibachi," he said. They would stay in their apartments all night. "It's all set. We're on Plan B."

George Leary, the Third District general manager, said late in the afternoon that nothing had changed in the utility's basic plan from earlier in the day: Get the poles replaced, restore the wiring. Crews had the northernmost pole in place, near the East Norwalk Boating and Yacht Club at 60 Seaview Ave. by about 4:30 p.m.

Initially, 150 customers were out of power, Leary said. By late Monday afternoon, the only customers still lacking electricity were along Seaview Avenue, They included the Pastime Club at 59 Seaview Ave., Overton's restaurant, which has a sign on it indicating it won't be open for a few weeks, restaurant at 84 Seaview Ave., and the apartment building at 100 Seaview Ave.

Update 3:39 p.m.:

It may take two days for power to be restored to residents of an apartment complex near the downed wires on Seaview Avenue, said George Leary, general manager of the Third Taxing District, as he looked over the snapped utility poles on the street.

"We have to get new poles put in, and then reconnect the wires," Leary said as he stood in a trench coat and white utility helmet on a small hill at the corner of East and Seaview Avenues in East Norwalk.

"We'll try to get the residential customers back," he said, gesturing toward an apartment building just south of the Harbor Lights restaurant. The apartment building and restaurant are the only customers currently without power, he said. About 150 customers originally lost power in the incident.

A truck hit a low-hanging telephone wire near the at 59 Seaview Ave., Leary said. Five telephone poles will need to be replaced, he said. Some of them snapped entirely south of the club, which is on the corner of East and Seaview Avenues.

Utility crews from the Third District, the Second District and a company hired by the Third District worked on removing the poles this afternoon, and the hired company delivered several poles, now laid on the side of Seaview Avenue.

Original article:

Several utility poles carrying thick electricity wires were pulled down onto Seaview Avenue near its intersection with East Avenue at about 1:10 p.m.

Wires had been down in the same area earlier in the day, said William Sullivan Jr., who was in the Pastime Club bar for lunch at 59 Seaview Ave. when he and other patrons saw two brilliant flashes and heard the several booms.

"It was quite scary, actually," Sullivan said. "It scared the hell out of all of us."

Bartender Ted Persons said he took a look at the clock in the bar just as the electricity went out. He noted the time was 1:10 p.m.

At 3 p.m., about 10 utility trucks were on the scene from the Third Taxing District, Cablevision and AT&T. Power remained out in the area.