A car crash into a utility pole on North Maple Street in Simpsonville left hundreds of Duke Energy customers in the dark late Wednesday night, and police have charged the driver with driving under the influence. Officers identified him as 20-year-old Carson James Wham, who was taken to the Greenville County Detention Center after the wreck.
According to WYFF News 4, police say the man was arrested and charged with DUI after the crash left hundreds of Simpsonville residents without power. The Simpsonville Police Department was dispatched to the area of West College Street and North Maple Street for a report of a car crashing into a pole, and Wham was transported to the Greenville County Detention Center, where he was charged with driving under the influence.
Outage Numbers Shifted as Duke Energy Updated Its Estimate
Duke Energy says the outage was first reported at 11:37 p.m. Wednesday, according to wyff4.com. The outage area was centered around Southeast Main Street and East Curtis Street, while the damaged pole itself sat on North Maple Street, the station reported.
The customer count tied to the outage proved to be a moving target. A spokesperson for Duke Energy initially said about 4,000 customers were impacted, but the company's outage site later showed closer to 600 without power, per the same report. A separate account from wspa.com put the number at 585 residents, citing the same Wednesday night timing for when the outage was first identified. The discrepancy between the figures has not been reconciled.
Crews Worked Through the Night to Restore Power
Utility crews were on site throughout the night and into the day on North Maple Street tending to the outage, and power was restored just after lunchtime Thursday, the station noted. WSPA's report adds that the Simpsonville Police Department responded before midnight to the area of West College Street and North Maple Street after the vehicle reportedly collided with the pole.
This is not the first time a single-vehicle crash has knocked out power to a wide swath of Simpsonville. A separate incident left roughly 1,000 homes without power after a traffic accident around 7:30 p.m. near Lee Street and Old Laurens Road, where at least one utility pole carrying power lines was knocked down, wyff4.com previously reported. In that earlier case, power was restored to most homes in the area by 10 p.m. the same night.
