'How Did This Happen?' AT&T Pole Built In Road In Mt. Pleasant

MOUNT PLEASANT, WI — A sight on a freshly-paved road in Mount Pleasant may leave a person saying "you had one job," but this traffic hazard was no laughing matter.

Taylor Ave. in Racine County opened earlier this month after it was rebuilt and re-surfaced, but an AT&T utility pole was left standing - two feet in the roadway.

People wondered how something like this could have happened. A Mount Pleasant resident who lived in the neighborhood asked the same thing on Facebook. His post was shared more than 1,000 times as people speculated whether it was an oversight, a conspiracy or just dumb luck.

"I saw the right turn lane with a nicely painted arrow," said Tim Ruelle, a local resident in a WTMJ report. "Then, there's this telephone pole sticking out and I thought, uh-oh."

For days, a barricade was physically bolted to the AT&T pole, warning drivers of the obstruction. Earlier this week, orange barrels were put in front of the barricade as a further warning.

A person on Facebook who claimed to be the road contractor who worked on the Taylor Ave. resurfacing said, "This isn't a mistake, it's AT&T engineering and managers taking forever to find a contractor (which is me) to rebuild on the other side of the road."

AT&T moved the pole on the morning before Thanksgiving. Jeff Loken of Mount Pleasant asked, "Why does it take a FB post to get this fixed?"

Multiple messages to the Village of Mount Pleasant by Patch.com were not returned.

Patch.com Photo