Updated: Two arrested after bus crash causes South Shore power outage

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The two drivers involved in a road accident Saturday that saw a Hydro-Québec pylon knocked over and 88,000 customers left without power have been arrested, Longueuil police said on Sunday evening.

The driver of the bus belonging to the Association des pompiers auxiliaires de la Montérégie (APAM), a man in his 60s, faces charges of dangerous driving causing injury while the driver of the car, a woman whose age as not disclosed, faces a charge of impaired driving.

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The police investigation is continuing in an effort to establish the sequence of events leading up to the collision and subsequent toppling of the power pylon, which occurred at the intersection of Chambly Rd. and Highway 30.

Three people were injured in the incident, two aboard the bus and the third in the car. Their lives are not in danger.

Hydro-Québec had restored power by early Sunday evening to nearly all South Shore residents who had been without it since the crash. Those affected by the blackout were mostly in St-Hubert, Greenfield Park and St-Bruno.

Hydro-Québec crews worked Sunday to restore power to customers by isolating the section where the pylon is located and reconfiguring the high-tension wires so that other power sources could feed the affected lines. The process involved many preparatory steps on Sunday morning and afternoon, said Hydro-Québec spokesperson Jonathan Côté. He explained that, unlike situations in which outages are caused by high winds and felled trees and power is restored gradually, in this case the power would be restored faster — “block by block, from one minute to the next.”

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The damaged pylon will have to be rebuilt completely, Hydro-Québec said, and that will take several days.

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Hydro-Québec described Saturday’s event as highly unusual since vehicles in the area generally travel at low speed and there are guardrails all along the road. A transformer being knocked over is a “one in a million” event, said Côté.

The bus that hit the pylon was carrying volunteer firefighters from the Association des pompiers auxiliaires de la Montérégie (APAM); they were en route to a fire and the bus was presumably travelling at considerable speed, Côté said.

The vehicle is not a fire truck, but an emergency support vehicle used by the volunteer firefighters’ association to assist victims.

“APAM is truly sorry for the inconveniences resulting from this accident and our thoughts are with those affected,” the association said in a statement on Sunday. “The association will co-operate fully with the (police) investigation to shed light on this sad event.”

Hydro-Québec said it quickly secured the perimeter Saturday night to enable emergency crews to intervene safely with those involved in the crash, since there were live high-tension wires on the ground.

When power is restored, Côté recommends that residents not turn air conditioning up to maximum and should refrain from using appliances that consume considerable energy.

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