An apparently rotten electricity pole at Hadfield Street gave way yesterday almost bringing down others and giving residents a scare but luckily there was no damage to homes though a burst wire briefly flared up.

Fallen: The snapped electricity pole and the leaning poles at Hadfield Street yesterday.

Residents could not say whether any of their appliances suffered any damage since electricity was cut off.

The incident occurred at around 3pm yesterday. “We just heard a lil sound and we peep out and we see the confusion”, said Ishmael Khan, whose Lot 2 Hadfield Street home was close to a dangerously leaning pole.

He said that he immediately shut off the main switch and unplugged his appliances.

The Fire Service and Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company responded promptly when contacted but the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Company took some time to arrive, he said.

The broken pole was between two houses and a look at the portion where it snapped, revealed signs of rot. The snapped pole also forced the poles close to it to lean dangerously.

Weak: The part of the pole which snapped.

Suzette Atkins of Lot 5 Hadfield Street, close to where the pole broke said that she was watching television when her daughter cried out that the pole had fallen. She said that she heard people shouting for them to come out of the building. Another resident said that she saw the pole falling and one of the wires snapped, caught on a breadfruit tree and briefly flared up.

They were not very complimentary of the power company’s response. “GPL tek it own time to come”, said one resident.

For the Khans, the fallen pole brought a sense of déjà vu. About twelve years ago another pole collapsed there and appliances were damaged but they were never compensated, Khan said.

He showed this newspaper an article about the incident then.

A GPL employee told this newspaper that they would have to replace the pole and the wire.