Low-Hanging Wire Catches On Truck, Causes 3 Fires, Shuts Hooper-Bay In Toms River

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A tractor-trailer got caught on low-hanging wire and snapped it, leading to a closure of the intersection of Hooper and Bay avenues and three fires on Thursday, Toms River police said.

The incident happened about 10:40 a.m. Thursday as Roberto Olivasmorales, 39, of Hillside, pulled onto the ramp for Bay Avenue eastbound from southbound Hooper Avenue, said Jillian Messina, media relations specialist for the Toms River Police Department.

As the tractor-trailer entered the ramp, the top of the trailer hit a low-hanging Verizon fiberoptic line, Messina said.

The line got caught and snapped from a utility pole, she said, and fell across the east and westbound lanes of Bay Avenue. The snapped line damaged a traffic signal and the hood of a vehicle that was waiting on the ramp from Bay Avenue to merge with traffic on southbound Hooper Avenue, Messina said.

The force of the line being snapped resulted in three separate fires, Messina said, and the Toms River Fire Company and New Jersey Forest Fire Service responded to extinguish the fires. Crews from Verizon and JCP&L responded to repair the damaged wires.

The snapped wires also led to a power outage that affected more than 1,400 homes and businesses, along with a brief outage at East Dover Elementary School and an outage at Toms River High School East. The outage at Toms River East led to an early dismissal there when an odor of gas that was traced to the generators prompted an evacuation.

Messina said the preliminary investigation showed Olivasmorales was driving a standard-size truck and trailer, and police believe the Verizon line was low or sagging for an unknown reason when it caught on the trailer, causing the wires to snap.

There were no reported injuries at the scene and there was no fault was found on either driver, she said.