WHAT A MESS
Officials, media stuck on peninsula after marine division event
Thirty or more officials who attended a press conference celebrating the opening of the new Macomb County Sheriff’s Office Marine Division facility were trapped in their vehicles for nearly two hours Monday on South River Road due to a fallen power line.
A large excavation vehicle knocked down a utility pole and an attached power line at a bridge at about 3 p.m. just before government and private industry officials and media representatives began leaving the event at the end of South River along the Lake St. Clair shore in Harrison Township.
It created a lengthy traffic backup on the roadway, which bisects a thin peninsula between the Clinton River and Campau Bay in Lake St. Clair.
“What a nightmare,” County Executive Mark Hackel said as he waited in a vehicle with Deputy County Executive John Paul Rea and public relations official John Cwikla. “Unbelievable.”
“We’re stuck. We got a river on one side and the lake on the other,” said county Commissioner Joe Romano from his vehicle also occupied by Commissioner Jim Perna.
Also trapped were Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller and her associates, Clerk Anthony Forlini, Treasurer Larry Rocca, other county commissioners, officials from New Baltimore and Harrison Township, officials from Rockford Construction and Plante Moran, and media members, including Gina Joseph of The Macomb Daily.
A DTE crew was able to stabilize the pole
and line to allow traffic to pass shortly before 5 p.m.
Hackel said the excavator was still running as the driver immediately jumped out in fear of electrocution.
The road had been shut down to one lane over a bridge due to the heavy equipment being used for a private industry project at that area.
Hackel questioned why such a large vehicle was on the roadway and whether a permit was obtained.
Workers at businesses in the area also couldn’t leave, and residents in the area couldn’t get home, he noted.
An 88-year-old man who resides in the area parked his vehicle on the other side and walked home. A resident for 24 years, he said a similar incident previously occurred in the area due to a gas line leak.
Romano, attempting to bring humor to the situation, asked a reporter to come to the scene.
“Bring food,” he said via text message.