Accident involving boom truck causes outages

An accident involving a boom truck on Sunday afternoon, October 22, 2023, caused power and internet outages in Taylorsville which continued for nearly 24 hours for some utility customers.

Taylorsville Town Manager Aaron Wike told The Times that a local company’s bucket truck, which had displayed a banner for the Kids’ Korner on Saturday at the Taylorsville Apple Festival, was being moved away from the Town Park area on Sunday afternoon when the incident occurred.

The driver of the boom truck failed to lower the boom before driving off, resulting in the boom snagging utility lines and bringing down two poles while damaging four other poles. Wike said the driver of the truck was not injured.

Utility crews worked to repair the damaged lines Sunday and Monday. Power was out for as many as 579 Duke Energy customers around 9 p.m. Sunday. Most electrical service was restored by Monday. Taylorsville Town Hall and some downtown businesses had internet outages until mid-afternoon Monday, when service was restored.