Crews get power up quickly

Mission Valley Power and local communications company crews worked side by side Sept. 1 after a semi tractor pulling a trailer with a forklift and loader hit local communication and power lines and dragged them to the ground.

Arnold Sorrell, environmental safety compliance officer for Mission Valley Power said the downed power line was fixed in a relatively quick amount of time.

The outage occurred at about 1:30 p.m. Sept. 1 at the top of First Street East where a 15.5-foot forklift caught the lines, he said.

Sorrell said 50 customers lost power during the outage, but power was restored by 6:30 p.m.

Mission Valley Power dispatched a total of 15 employees that make up three crews and one tree crew, Sorrell said.

Crew member replaced three broken poles during the outage. Communication companies worked side by side to restore their downed cables, he said.

During the outage First Street East was closed to travel to ensure traveler and worker safety.