Dumpster gets caught in utility lines
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EAST LONGMEADOW, Massachusetts (WSHM) — Drivers in East Longmeadow experienced a traffic back-up Monday morning after a garbage truck drove away with a dumpster still attached to the top of it. That dumpster then snagged some power lines.
North Main Street was closed this morning during the incident. Bystanders said they could hear the truck hit something and one business even lost power.
“We were inside doing our morning prep and all of a sudden, we heard kind of a thud and next, we had a little bit of a power surge in our building. We actually lost half the power for a while,” said Andrew Webster, manager of a nearby Jiffy Lube location.
East Longmeadow police and fire officials said a garbage truck driver was emptying a dumpster at a nearby Big Y grocery store and drove away before setting the dumpster back down. That elevated dumpster struck caught an overhead wire, which caused some issues, including disconnected power and a loss of street lights.
“Oh, we’ve never seen anything like that. It’s not unheard of seeing accidents and things like that here at this intersection, it’s common, but to have a garbage truck driving around with a dumpster over his head, that’s a new one for us,” Webster noted.
Western Mass News spoke with another nearby business owner who was lucky enough to have her lights stay on.
“So I came out and then I saw the dumpster truck with the dumpster hanging by one hook and I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Cookie Torres, owner of Cookie’s Café.
Crews arrived on-scene around 7:30 a.m. Monday and remained on-site for several hours to assess the power situation.
Police said the incident is under investigation and, fortunately, no one was injured.
We also reached out to the truck company involved – Triple T Trucking – but the company declined to comment.
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