NIPAWIN — Nobody was injured as a Nipawin streetlight on Main Street that was marked for replacement by SaskPower in May collapsed across the sidewalk and onto the road.
On June 29, at 4:58 pm, the Nipawin Fire Department was dispatched to the call.
When crews arrived it was determined that the power line was still connected and power was still live to the light fixture.
“The base of the street light was rusted out and... it finally collapsed,” Starkell said. “A little bit of the wind, of course, with the banners and everything that was on it just brought it down.”
A safety perimeter was set up to ensure public safety.
SaskPower was then contacted and was able to disconnect the power with no further problems.
There was no damage or injuries as a result of the downed street light.
“That’s a very busy corner on Main Street in Nipawin, and of course there are the four-way traffic lights that are there,” Starkell said. “There are always a lot of people in that area constantly, so it was very fortunate nobody got hurt and no damage to any of the vehicles.”
SaskPower is responsible for about 85,000 streetlights in the province and the maintenance on them.
“It is pretty rare for them to fall over,” Joel Cherry, spokesperson with SaskPower.
“The operations manager in Tisdale, he covers not just Tisdale and Nipawin but that whole area. He said he has been there for eight years and this is only the third time he’s seen it happen.”
To prevent incidents like this from happening, SaskPower has a streetlight inspection program.
Thousands of streetlights are inspected each year, and each individual streetlight is planned to be inspected one time in a 10-year period.
“We treat them with rust inhibitors if they’re at a point where they’re not rusted to the point where they need to be replaced, and if we find they do need to be replaced we do that as soon as possible.”
Cherry said the streetlight that had fallen was one that was marked for replacement.
“In this case we investigated the streetlights in May, and the one that had fallen over was marked for replacement but because of weather in the area it came down before we were able to replace it.”
