PORT ANGELES — Crews from CenturyLink are expected to begin repairing a broken telephone pole along South Oak Street today after a 69-year-old Port Angeles man allegedly drove a pickup truck into it before he reversed and backed into a nearby garage, taking out two walls.
Patrick Mitchell Jackson was in the Clallam County jail Tuesday, held in lieu of $1,000 bail after he was booked for investigation of one count of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Jackson was trying to pull into an alleyway off of the 300 block of South Oak Street at about 10:18 p.m. Monday when he allegedly sent the Ford F-350 pickup truck he was driving into a telephone pole, severing it at its base, said Officer Dan Morse with the Port Angeles Police Department.
Morse said Jackson then backed up from the damaged pole and crossed the street into the side of a detached garage, where the truck came to a stop.
“The truck was almost completely within the garage,” Morse said.
“It actually knocked out two walls of the garage.”
Neither Jackson nor anyone else was injured in the wreck, Morse said.
Paramedics checked Jackson as a precaution before he was booked into the Clallam County jail.
Morse did not have a damage estimate Tuesday morning.
“The garage is going to take extensive repair,” Morse added.
Norma Moon, owner of the garage and home just to the north, said she heard a thud outside the night it happened, but did not immediately see what happened when she looked out her front window.
Moon, 92, said Tuesday she did not have a damage estimate and that her son is in the process of working with the insurance company.
Gloria Rempel, a neighbor and friend of Moon’s, said the garage appeared to have been completely shifted off its foundation.
“The whole garage has to come down,” Rempel said.
Jan Kampbell, a spokeswoman for CenturyLink based in Tacoma, said the company’s telephone line crews heard about the damaged pole Tuesday morning and plan to have the pole completely replaced by the end of today.
Kampbell said only a few CenturyLink customers were affected by the damaged pole, which was carrying telephone and Internet service lines.
Crews spent about two hours restoring service, Kampbell said, adding that all service to the affected area had been restored.
Kampbell could not offer a cost estimate of the repairs Tuesday.
“It’s too early to estimate a cost as far as the pole and the amount of time [repairs will take],” Kampbell said.
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
