Rochester Gas and Electric crews worked through the night to replace power poles, brought down in Henrietta when a dump truck tried to drive beneath the wires with its bed raised.
Some 15 poles were either knocked flat and half a dozen were so badly damaged that they had to be replaced when the truck tore down six wires on Monday morning. As of Tuesday morning, Lehigh Station Road was still closed in front of Rush-Henrietta Senior High School where the accident took place.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a morning briefing that the road was closed between East Henrietta Road and Masthead Way.
Rochester Gas and Electric said a tremendous effort was made overnight and all poles have been replaced. All customers have now been restored to service except for one who had the power lines on their home damaged. A company spokeswoman said they haven’t calculated the cost of the accident yet. She said some of the poles were possibly due to be replaced, but that had nothing to do with the accident.
Once the power lines are fully restored, Spectrum Cable, Frontier and the other companies having communications lines on the poles will come in, one-by-one, and restore their lines as well. The road will be reopened only to local residents, but
Captain Samuel Bell of the MCSO says the trucking company has insurance, which should cover some of the repair cost. He says driver Mark Inguaggito of Florida was ticketed for having an over height vehicle and no warning light on the truck to warn that the dump bed was raised. There are some additional federal charges relating to faulty brakes on the truck, which belongs to Ferrari Holdings.
Deputies are still talking to witnesses to see if the driver was distracted or some other incident caused the driver to forget to lower the dump bed.
Rush-Henrietta High School had to be evacuated yesterday because of the downed lines. Although the power is back on, the school remained closed on Tuesday. Officials plan to reopen for summer school tomorrow.