CENTER – An accident involving a semi-truck into a power pole on Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 28, caused parts of Center to be without power and internet, according to Facebook posts by the Center Consolidated School District and the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative.
The accident was at the corner of 4th and Broadway streets near CCSD’s preschool at approximately 3 p.m. CCSD reported that no students or staff were injured, but that preschool students of the district were being released at the kindergarten for pickup rather than the usual designated area.
SLV REC announced they were providing “mutual aid” to the town and working to get power restored and that Ciello was working on the internet.
Power and internet services were restored around 6 p.m. according to SLV REC and Ciello, but they also warned residents that they may still experience service interruptions while they made permanent repairs.
Center resident Barbara Ulibarri spoke about the outages and how it was worrisome to be without power.
“I was at work when we heard what happened,” she said. “We were without power for a couple of minutes before our generator kicked on, so we had some power to our building. I left work and went home and had no power at home. A neighbor told me that she heard that we might be without power for up to 24 hours. I decided to go to town to purchase something for dinner that wouldn’t have to be cooked, and when I got home, the power had been fully restored.”
Ulibarri said that power was restored around 5:20 p.m. Ulibarri said she was worried that Center would be without power overnight.
“Thank goodness that didn’t happen,” she said.
Information about why the accident occurred has not been released.
