A Monroe City woman was transported to Hannibal Regional Hospital Thursday morning following a one-vehicle accident that cut power to the traffic lights at a busy downtown Hannibal intersection and to a pair of nearby schools.
The driver of the car was identified by the Hannibal Police Department as Sarah Mudd. According to police, the station wagon she was driving swerved into a power pole in the 1300 block of Broadway after she was stricken with what was described as a “medical condition.” The extent of Mudd’s injuries as a result of the accident were not known.
When the vehicle struck the pole at approximately 8:45 a.m. it knocked a transformer lose, cutting power to the traffic lights at Grand Avenue and Broadway. According to Jared Stewart, line superintendent with the Board of Public Works, the impact also caused a pair of nearby line fuses to blow.
When the cutouts failed, Stewart reports that power was cut to approximately 156 BPW customers in the area. He added that among the locations gong dark were St. John Lutheran School and Eugene Field Elementary School. Stewart says that electricity to 150 customers, including the schools, was restored in approximately 25 minutes. It took an additional 15 minutes for the transformer to be repaired, which returned power to the remaining six customers and to the traffic lights at the intersection.
No traffic mishaps at the intersection occurred as a result of the traffic signals being out.
