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Accident causes lights to go out in Abbeville

As much as half of Abbeville lost power early Thursday morning.
An electrical crew from the city responded around 4 a.m. after a crash, near Super 1 Foods, on the La. 14 Bypass, which led to damage to two primary electrical lines. The crew had power restored around 6 a.m.
“It was a major outage,” Abbeville Mayor Mark Piazza said. “Most of the south and east sides of the city were affected. Our electrical superintendent said it was close to half the town.
“That is around 2,000 customers.”
Members of the electrical crew did not have to replace the pole, as the vehicle involved in the crash did not hit the pole. Instead, the vehicle hit guy-wire that holes up the pole.
“The guy-wire flew up and hit the primaries on the high-voltage system,” Piazza explained. “It pulled two of the primaries down.
“The pole wasn’t affected.”
Piazza said that fact helped significantly in the process of restoring power.
“If it had knocked the pole down,” Piazza said, “it would have taken three times longer. Since it was just a couple of the primaries disconnected, they were able to re-establish power in just a couple of hours.
“It could have been for several hours.”

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