Accident cuts power to clinic

Truck driver snaps East Lawrence power line

The grand opening of Heartland Medical Clinic lasted almost four hours Monday. Then the lights went out.

“We cannot do X-rays,” said Amy Berthold, director of the clinic that opened its office Monday on the ground floor of Riverfront Plaza. “Our phones don’t work, and of course, all of our computers. We’re having trouble finding patient charts because we’re using flashlights.”

The reason for the chaos: A semitrailer snagged electricity lines while making a turn at Seventh and New York streets, breaking a power pole and leaving Riverfront Plaza without power for four hours.

Lawrence Police said the driver, Patrick McCleary of Lexington, Ill., was making a delivery to the Journal-World just before 1 p.m. Monday when the accident happened. He was driving a maroon 2000 Freightliner owned by Nationwide Midwest of Towanda, Ill.

“He snagged one of the wires tight, and it snapped the pole off,” said Lawrence Police Sgt. David Hubbel.

Westar officials said five buildings lost power, most for less than 30 minutes. But Riverfront — home to Heartland, SpringHill Suites, Sunflower Broadband and other businesses — lost power for the afternoon.

At Heartland, the power outage made some medical procedures, such as X-rays, impossible. Blood samples in the refrigerator were moved to ice. Nurses moved patients out to the reception area, which had some sunlight from nearby windows, even as new patients arrived by descending three flights of darkened stairs; the elevator wasn’t working because of the power outage.

“We’ll make do,” said Pat Mayo, a nurse at the clinic.

The attitude was the same at other Riverfront businesses.

A downed power pole at Seventh and New York streets caused a loss of electricity to the Riverfront Plaza and four other buildings after a semitrailer tore loose power lines. Police said the truck driver was traveling north about 1 p.m. Monday on New York Street and snagged some overhead power lines while turning left onto Seventh Street, snapping off the top of the power pole.

SpringHill Suites was the site for a corporate meeting attended by 75 people, manager Dave Horstman said. An emergency generator provided lights in the meeting room, he said, but attendees were no longer able to use the audio-visual equipment. They talked with one another, instead.

“We’re doing fine,” Horstman said. “It’s midday. If it had to happen any time, this is it.”

Sunflower Broadband, which has offices and customer service operations in the building, was out of business for the afternoon but back in operation by early evening.

Victor Torres, director of the city’s Neighborhood Resources Department, which is near the medical clinic, said most of his workers were out in the field and unaffected by the outage.

“We’re operating as we normally do,” he said. “It’s a nonissue. It’s more an inconvenience than shutting down our operations.”

Police said the accident was still under investigation. City officials noted that New York Street was not on the list of “delivery truck routes” where semis are generally allowed within the city.

Around 5 p.m., power returned to Riverfront, and Heartland officials started picking up the pieces.

“We did OK,” Berthold said. “We’re used to adapting.”