Truck accident knocks out Riverfront Plaza power

Riverfront Plaza was expected to be without power until about 4:45 p.m. today, after a semitractor-trailer tore loose power lines in an early afternoon accident near Seventh and New York streets.

Telephone and data services to the plaza also were knocked out. The outage extended into the surrounding neighborhood, but the extent was immediately unknown. The power to the south of the intersection was rerouted and back on about 15 minutes after the accident.

Lawrence Police Sgt. David Hubbel said the truck was on its way to making a delivery at the Lawrence Journal-World.

The truck was northbound on New York Street and making a left onto Seventh Street when it snagged some overhead powerlines, pulled them tight, and snapped off the top of a power pole about a block north of the intersection.

Nobody was hurt in the incident, Hubbel said.

As of about 2:15 p.m., the areas still without power included the Amtrack railway station, the signal beacon at the railroad crossing and Riverfront Plaza. Riverfront Plaza houses Sunflower Broadband and Springhill Suites by Marriott.

Sunflower officials said customers should not be affected by the outage.

“Sunflower’s customer service lines are expected to be busier than usual,” said Frank Wiles, Sunflower’s IT manager. “Until our phone lines are restored, we will only be able to take messages and we’ll get back to our customers when we get back to speed.”


For more on this story, see the 6News reports at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. and pick up a copy of Tuesday’s Journal-World.