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600 without electricity in Lake Worth

Posted at 12:45 PM, Mar 06, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-06 20:41:13-05

The strong winds not just an issue for crews battling wildfires.

Powerful gusts created a potentially dangerous situation at the Murry Hills condos in Lake Worth, sending a power pole crashing down.

At one point, 600 residents were without power
 
The tangled mess of wood and wire came too close for some.

“It looks like it was falling on top of my patio,” resident Gisella Holzem says. “It scared me because I was afraid I would be [electrocuted].

As crews worked to get it upright, folks around the complex, now without power, stepped outside to watch from a safe distance.

Matilda Rippert says she saw signs of the collapse coming from a mile away.

“It had been leaning,” she says. “And then it just got more rotten at the bottom and just leaned more.”

In fact, some people who talked with News Channel 5 off camera expressed their concern over why the pole wasn't replaced before.

We took those concerns to Lake Worth Utilities.

Officials told us the poles in their district are inspected every 5 years.

The poles at Murry Hills were just inspected in October of last year, and this particular pole was marked for replacement this year.

Nature, however, had a different timetable.

Residents say they are happy for the quick response on Monday.

“It was leaning quite a bit,” Rippert says. “If it would've fallen over if somebody didn't do something about it...it probably would've been quite a mess."

Lake Worth utilities tells us power was back within an hour to most customers.

The new pole was set to be installed by the end of the day.

Two more poles are set to be replaced in the complex in the coming weeks.
 

 

EARLIER STORY

As of noon Monday power was out for 600 customers in Lake Worth.

It was the result of a broken power pole on Cynthia Lane, which is located between Lake Osborne Drive and I-95.

It isn't clear what caused the pole to break, but it's possible it was due to heavy winds.

Lake Worth Utilities dispatched a crew to the scene to restore power.