HADLEY — The driver of a large mower struck a utility pole on Route 9 Wednesday morning, knocking it across the westbound lanes and sending sparks flying from live wires.
The incident occurred at about 11:30 a.m. just west of the entrance to the Campus Shopping Plaza and the Courtyard Marriott hotel. All four lanes of Route 9 were shut down for several hours, with one lane in each direction opening around 3 p.m. and the all lanes open in early evening, police said.
Hadley Police filmed the flames and posted a video to their Facebook page.
In addition to the traffic issues, with detours in effect until midafternoon, the fallen pole also caused a power outage for about 600 customers in Hadley and Amherst along the Route 9 corridor, said Eversource spokeswoman Priscilla Ress.
Ress said crews spent about an hour making repairs. The utility was able to send out an alert that an outage would take place.
“Prior to 11:30 a pole snapped and we had to quickly call customers in the area to tell them they would have to take a temporary outage,” Ress said.
