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Downed pole causes traffic backup in Honesdale

Emergency crews had to shut down the road and reroute traffic causing traffic delays for hours.

HONESDALE, Pa. — Blustery winds in Honesdale knocked over a light pole blocking all of Main Street.  

The pole also landed on top of an SUV parked in front of Honesdale National Bank. 

The owner of the SUV was inside it when the pole came down onto the hood, and luckily he wasn't injured.  

Emergency crews had to shut down the road and reroute traffic causing traffic delays for hours.

"We have tractor-trailers parked on Main Street because we can divert them down to smaller roads. And we're sending the smaller traffic around on secondary roads and it's just jamming everything up in any way you can think of," said Dan Brown, Honesdale DPW.

"Things could have been a heck of a lot worse. You know, we could have had other injuries and we could have had other damage. So luckily, it's just the one poll and we hopefully get everything back up soon," said Sarah Canfield, Honesdale Borough.

The holiday decorations just went up on these light poles earlier this week and borough officials say the weight of it could have been part of the reason the pole fell. 

As a precaution, some of the decorations were taken down temporarily.

"We're taking the ones down on the metal poles just because of some of the leading there's one other one over here that is leaning. So we're just being very careful that we don't have another incident today, especially with high wind velocity through the area," said Canfield.

Part of Honesdale's Revitalization Plan is to improve the look and safety of Main Street. 

That includes those old light poles but until the plans are approved and state funding is available, the old poles will remain.

"We've got to get rid of these, these metal poles. Because it's time they've just they're too old and the ones that are remaining are sadly going to have a fate just like this," said Brian Wilken, Greater Honesdale Partnership.

Main Street reopened to traffic around 1 p.m.

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