Communication lines blamed for two days of Anderson Drive closures

Laurens CPW crews repair lines on Anderson Drive Wednesday and Thursday after trucks bring down low communication lines.

Laurens, South Carolina – For the second day in a row, a section of Anderson Drive in Laurens has been closed due to required repairs when two different communication company lines were caught by trucks on two consecutive days.

CPW electric lines run parallel to Anderson Drive and do not cross the street, but communication carriers Frontier and Spectrum cross Anderson Drive at the same location. According to Department of Transportation specifications those lines are supposed to be a minimum of 15 feet, CPW General Manager John Young  said, and those lines are sometimes not at the required height.

The first incident occurred Wednesday afternoon, when the top of an 18-wheeler traveling on Anderson Drive came into contact with a communication company line which was lower than specified height, Young said. The incident broke two utility poles owned by Laurens Commission of Public Works.

The power blinked quickly off and immediately back on when the accident happened on Wednesday, but no customers actually lost power, Young said. Because both poles were broken, however, Anderson Drive was closed until they were replaced and each company made repairs which were competed Wednesday night, Young said.

But about 9:30 a.m. on Thursday morning another truck caught the  newly-repaired Spectrum line and pulled the wires, causing another closure of Anderson Drive. That closure was still in effect as of mid-afternoon Thursday.

About 2 p.m. on Thursday, however, Spectrum had announced that its outages were a result of electrical outages, Young said, which was not the case.

“There was no power outage in the CPW’s service territory either day,” Young said. “This issue is the result of vehicular interference with a Spectrum line on Anderson Drive as its height was not at DOT specifications.”