Closure on Tranquille due to plow striking hydro pole, city says

A temporary street closure on Tranquille Road last week was due to an incident involving a City of Kamloops plow truck backing into a power pole, according to a city manager.

A Castanet Kamloops reader sent in video footage from Dec. 30 showing the plow truck heading westbound on Tranquille Road, stopping at Crestline Street, reversing and then striking the pole.

The incident happened just before 9:30 a.m.

Glen Farrow, streets and environment services manager for the City of Kamloops, confirmed one of the city’s plow trucks backed into the power pole.

Farrow said no one was injured and no lines were downed as a result of the incident.

“When Hydro came to fix the pole, they didn't actually de-energize the the lines or anything," he said.

"So there was no lines down — that's the key thing around the safety side of things."

Farrow said to his knowledge, a new power pole was installed and set back further from the road, as the original pole was sitting quite close to the asphalt.

“My understanding is that they've relocated that pole much further off the edge of road,” he said.

A social media post from the City of Kamloops said a detour route around the incident was planned to be in effect for about eight hours following the collision.

The reader who submitted the video footage to Castanet said it appeared the plow truck used side streets to circle back around to the area where the damage took place, with crews arriving minutes later to respond to the incident.

Farrow said the plow operator followed procedure and reported the incident immediately to his crew leader.

“With this one, there's the risk of of the power lines going down which would have created further challenges for the area and potentially the operator," he said.

"He spun around, he waited there, he made contact with his crew leader and followed the procedure perfectly."