Power being restored after garbage truck hits power pole

The Imperial Irrigation District has almost restored power around Indio and La Quinta after the driver of a garbage truck crashed into a power pole Friday morning.

The power pole is located near Fiesta Drive and Roadrunner Lane.

They said the driver was on his normal route.

Marion J. Champion with IID said the outage was reported at 9:15 a.m. and affected 933 customers. By 10:40 a.m, only 141 customers were without power.

For those living near Roadrunner Lane, this was not the scene they expected to see when they woke up.

“You know it’s a Friday morning garbage truck noise, the guys are checking the lines and I thought ‘You know I’m going to take a look’ and when I opened up the gate I went ‘Oh my God’ and I realized it was across the street and the pole had fallen,” resident Cherri Peloni said.

Officials said a hazmat team was called in to clean non-hazardous mineral oil that leaked onto the roadway from a transformer that was attached to the downed pole.

“First concern would obviously be the people involved in this incident. The driver was fine there was no one else involved in this incident. So we just close down the roads so traffic doesn’t come in and out of the area and advise the neighbors in the community of what’s going on,” Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Armando Munoz said.

Some residents in the immediate area of the downed power pole told us they are unable to leave their homes while crews continue to make repairs.

IID expects to have all power restored by 6 p.m. Friday.

Burrtec has not said yet if they will be responsible for anyone’s food that was spoiled while the power was out.