Power outage affects an estimated 5,000 local customers

Electric, telephone and cable services in Laconia, Gilford and Belmont were disrupted yesterday when a dump truck struck and felled several utility lines on Gilford Avenue around 10:30 a.m.

David Green, who was driving the truck for Andrews Construction Company of Campton, said that after emptying the truck at the Taylor Home, he lowered the bed, drove south on Union Avenue and headed east on Gilford Avenue. "I heard something snap and when I looked back I saw sparks and wires down."

Green said that the bed of the truck had lifted, but he was at loss to explain why.

Martin Murray, a spokesman for Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH) said that a preliminary investigation indicated that the raised truck bed first hit a telephone company cable crossing Gilford Avenue. The tension pulled down a utility pole, which in turn brought down electrical lines and equipment. A severed and downed power line wound up around a street lamp on a utility pole still standing but askew at the corner of Ridgewood Avenue.

The downed line charred the pole and sent a charge into the basement at the home of Dick Shepherd at 308 Gilford Avenue. "I had sparks flying through my basement," Shepherd said.

The power outage brought businesses across the area to a crawl, if not a standstill. Service stations could not pump gas. Restaurants could not cook meals. Retail clerks handled transactions by hand. Computer networks and security systems went down.

Murray said that the mishap shut down a substation on Gilford Avenue. Some 5,000 customers of PSNH lost power, he said, adding that power was restored to all but 20 or 30 in the immediate vicinity by 3 p.m. Crews from Verizon and Metrocast Cablevision also worked throughout much of the day to restore service.

"This is not the first time this has happened," Murray said, adding that PSNH "finds ways to remind drivers to put their beds down." According to Murray, PSNH crews reported that all lines, wires and cables were strung at or above the required minimum of 18 feet above the street. The maximum allowable height for trucks is 13.5 feet, he said.