By Malcolm Butler
Approximately 600 residents on the northwest side of Ruston around the La Mesa area lost power last night when a “giant” pine tree uprooted and hit electrical lines on Ashland Street at 9:30 p.m. between Hillside and Madera.
According to Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker, all the electricity has been restored as of early morning hours, but the entire city fiber grid is down due to a string of events directly related to the fallen tree.
Walker did stipulate that many of the homes that lost electricity during the night are currently being back-fed in order to provide electricity in advance of the poles and lines being replaced. Residents should not notice a difference during this tentative fix.
However, the city fiber is a bigger issue as it feeds almost all businesses, Lincoln Parish schools and city buildings. It is 100 percent independent of resident fiber options, such as options such as Optimum and AT&T.
“Due to that bad weather, we lost at least 10 poles from what I am going to call Bittersweet to West Alabama,” said Walker. “Between the interstate moving south to West Alabama that is kind of a swamp area and we lost right at a mile of 192 pairs of fiber which is our main trunk line in our city.
“This fiber is huge. It’s about softball size (in diameter) so it held when the tree fell on it. The fiber actually held the tree up. But then when it was cut, it had a whiplash effect and that broke poles all the way to almost West Alabama.”
According to City of Ruston officials, they believe the lines which cross Interstate 20 from the south end of Ashland Street by the west-bound service road to the bottom of the hill on the east-bound service road just south of I-20 developed slack and an 18-wheeler-type truck clipped them.
“All evidence indicates that the tree fell on Ashland and a cross arm broke, allowing slack in the aerial crossing across the interstate,” said Public Works Director John Freeman. “Then a freightliner hit it and took it out. So, there was some slack that allowed it to drop ever so slightly, enough for it where something – we surmise an 18-wheeler – hit it and snapped poles. We found it laying in the interstate.”
The whiplash of this then caused a domino effect of poles snapping and lines completely falling to the ground.
“What happens when you get that kind of weight or some kind of whiplash on it, the cross beams that hold all the wires, those break,” said Walker. “When those break, everything goes out. The biggest problem we have right now is that main fiber that runs across I-20 has been broken in several places therefore we are having to replace it.”
The entire process of replacing the fiber is not a quick one.
“If you can imagine 192 pairs of fiber and you are having to go in and fuse these back together,” said Walker. “Most of our city businesses unless they have a hot spot or a work around are without internet service. This is major.”
Walker said that if everything goes as planned, officials hope all city fiber is repaired and operational by Monday morning.
“We have additional equipment coming in,” said Walker. “We are totally rebuilding a mile of the highest as far as height and voltage (69,000 volts) that we have in our city. We are having to replace every bit of it. I would hope we have full fiber back up in the city by Monday morning.”
