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BOUNTIFUL — Thousands of Utahns were stuck in gridlock traffic Friday morning after a dump truck knocked down power lines, sending live wires across both sides of the highway.
All lanes are open but crews continue to work at fixing the power lines. Davis County residents are still without power as of this afternoon.
I-15 was closed between Farmington and Woods Cross for about four hours, about 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.
Rocky Mountain Power's Dave Eskelsen said a dump truck with the bed up snagged lines and took down two poles around 4 a.m. A third pole was leaning against a sound barrier.
Police identified the truck as belonging to Ralph Smith Construction, the general contractor working for W.W. Clyde, the construction company doing all of the road work in South Davis County.
The driver was identified as Jimmy Staten, 53, from Salt Lake City.
Eskelsen said it was difficult to fix because crews had to shore up the lines so they wouldn't take down more poles when crews made the repairs. They worked to ground the power lines before trying to move them, Eskelsen said. He estimated it would take until about 9:30 a.m. to finish repairs.
Legacy Parkway was open to traffic including semis. FrontRunner was operating without delays. At one point it took about an hour to move six miles southbound on I-15.
About 1,200 Rocky Mountain Power customers were originally without electricity. Power was restored to all except 30 customers by 9:30 a.m., with those 30 expected to be restored by 2 p.m.
Police are inspecting the scene to see if it was a mechanical or driver error.
Updates will be posted as they become available. Get commute times on the home page of KSL.com and get traffic updates on KSL NewsRadio.
Contributing: Tracie Snowder, Mike Anderson, Nicole Vowell
