Port Angeles: Crash fells poles, signals at key corner; downtown traffic snarled

PORT ANGELES — Part of the city’s main thoroughfare was closed for several hours Tuesday after a truck knocked down a power pole, a telephone pole and traffic signals at First and Peabody streets.

City Light crews repaired the power pole, and the traffic light at the intersection was working again by midafternoon.

The crash happened early Tuesday morning when the driver of a truck driving northbound on Peabody Street suffered a medical problem that might have caused him to veer into a pole, Port Angeles Police Sgt. Jim Baertschiger said.

The truck apparently hit another truck as it drove off the road.

The force of the vehicle hitting the pole knocked the pole down, and it pulled another pole down as it fell, said Gail McLain, electrical engineering specialist for the city.

One of the poles was a city power pole, and the other was a Qwest telephone pole.

No power or phone outages were reported as a result of the damaged poles.

First Street was closed at Lincoln Street, at the east end of downtown Port Angeles, and traffic was rerouted up Lincoln to Fifth Street, prompting traffic back-ups through downtown and south on Lincoln.

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The rest of the story appears in the Wednesday Peninsula Daily News Clallam County edition.

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