CHICKASHA — A 31.5-ton electric transformer being transported from south Texas to Oklahoma City slipped off a flatbed trailer here July 26, blocking a major intersection for six hours.
No one was hit and no vehicles were damaged, but a section of curb was chipped.
The driver, a Conroe, Texas, man who works for Faith Trucking, a freight hauler based in Houston, Texas, told Southwest Ledger he was hauling the 63,000-pound industrial transformer to the Oklahoma City area.
The driver said that as he traveled northbound on Fourth Street he saw an eastbound police car and a westbound Suburban on Chickasha Avenue. When the SUV started through the intersection, he said, he tamped his brakes.
The transformer, he said, shifted, broke five chains, slipped off the trailer and onto the street. Hairstylist Crystal Coleman, whose shop is near the scene of the accident, told the Ledger she heard the mishap at approximately 8:30 a.m.
A Ledger employee unofficially clocked the northbound traffic light on Fourth Street switching from green to red in just four seconds on two separate occasions that day. The speed limit downtown is 25 mph.
Chickasha police officers and firefighters were called to the scene to divert traffic around the scene and to keep onlookers at a safe distance.
Allied Crane Service from Oklahoma City was contacted and sent two mobile cranes to Chickasha for the recovery effort. Public Service Co. of Oklahoma dispatched an employee who used a cherry-picker to insulate power lines at the intersection while the cranes hoisted the transformer off the street and lowered it back onto the Faith Trucking trailer.
A two-man hazmat crew from Environmental Clean-Up Inc. in Wayne, Okla., arrived with bags of “safety solvent” to sop up nontoxic mineral oil that spilled from the damaged transformer into the street and a nearby storm sewer.
After the driver anchored the payload with new chains and straps, he was on his way again at 2:25 p.m.
He told the Ledger he was cited for having an unsecured load; he has a commercial driver’s license. The fine for that ticket is $174, a police department spokesperson said.
Curtis W. Awbrey contributed to this story.