APOPKA, Fla. — An Apopka family described a frightening drive home Saturday when a row of light poles suddenly came crashing down along Park Avenue during a thunderstorm.
Diego Rivillas was driving his family home along Park Avenue after a day at the park when he suddenly saw the poles start to fall. “I slowed down a little bit and I kept on going across the intersection and then all of a sudden we saw all of the light poles just starting to come down one by one,” he told Channel 9.
Exclusive video obtained by Channel 9 shows sparks flying from what appears to be a transformer exploding, while one of the downed poles left live wires on the ground. At one point, another driver even stopped his vehicle directly on top of the fallen cable. “He was just going really fast, and we were like, ‘Stop, stop, stop!’ because we didn’t want those cables to come our way,” Rivilla recalled.
The driver said that at the moment, he was worried about his family’s safety, and the fact that he was behind the wheel of an electric vehicle surrounded by live wires. “My initial thought was that those are power lines. I’m in an electric car. I don’t know what’s going to happen here. So, I immediately slowed down,” he said.
Thankfully, no one was injured, and Rivilla says the close call is a reminder for other drivers to always stay alert on the road. “If you’re just not paying attention or on your phone or thinking about work or something else, there’s a big chance that you’re going to mess up,” he said.
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