Electrical power and cable TV service were cut to a five-block area — about 30 homes — along Locust Avenue in Woodward Wednesday evening when a farmer, driving a tractor and pulling a field cultivator along the residential streets, snagged overhead lines and snapped off at last two power poles.
There were no injuries reported in the incident, according the Woodward Police Chief Joseph Cox.
Karl Harris of Bouton was operating the farm implements that snagged the wires. Harris farms about 3.5 acres of ground east of the town owned by Woodward City Council member Ashvin Patel. The only access to the farm field is from E. Third Street.
“The cable TV wire was under the 16-foot limit,” Harris said. “I was watching out the right window, and it caught it on the left back corner of the field cultivator. It caught the cable TV wire, which is hung on the electrical poles.”
Harris said the folded-up DMI field cultivator he was pulling was 14’10” tall. He was pulling it with a 875 Versatile four-wheel-drive tractor.
“Apparently the poles were rotten enough that it broke them,” he said. “It didn’t even hurt the field cultivator. The farm equipment wasn’t damaged at all. I had cable TV wires stuck in my field cultivator when they guy come out and stopped me. He said, ‘Couldn’t you hear the wire snap behind you?’ and I said, ‘You can’t hear nothing in a tractor cab.’ Those cabs are so quiet and sound-proof from the outside.”
According to eye witnesses, Harris was driving the tractor and field cultivator southward along Locust Avenue. When he found vehicles parked along E. Third Street were blocking access to the field, he continued along Locust Avenue toward E. Fourth Street, and the implement caught an overhead line.
“He snagged it off that pole,” said Heidi Larsson of 503 E. Third St., indicating a power pole in the 300 block of Locust Avenue, “and that’s what this wire is right here. It extended clear over to there. That’s where he snagged it.”
Brooke Jeter of 203 Locust Ave. also witnessed the mishap with her 3-year-old son, Bentley, and 1-year-old daughter, Braelyn.
“I guess he pulled on that wire,” Jeter said, “and these poles all looked like they were going to pull out of the ground.”
The Woodward Police Department, Woodward Volunteer Fire Department and Dallas County Sheriff’s office responded to the incident. Alliant Energy and Mediacom were notified and responded. Woodward City Council members A. J. Patel and Todd Folkerts also toured the damage.
“He came here to turn and people were parked, so he couldn’t do it,” Folkerts said, relating what witnesses told him. “So he just kept giving it hell up to that next street.”
Brett LeMaster of 203 Locust Ave. said Harris has caused problems by bringing large machinery along the narrow streets for several years.
“It’s getting ridiculous,” LeMaster said. “That’s two years in a row now. See that wire wrapped up right there? He ripped that down last year and that one going across, he hit that last year, too.”
An unhappy Brian Crnkovich of 301 Locust St. sounded exasperated as he surveyed the damage in his yard.
“I’ve got a smashed mailbox, a broken power pole, a mess of cable wire and no electicity,” Crnkovich said.
He is also familiar with this problem. Crnkovich lodged a complaint one year ago at the May 8, 2017, meeting of the Woodward City Council. He described a similar incident in which Harris drove a tractor and field cultivator along Locust Avenue and E. Third Street, knocking down overhead lines and barely clearing trees and poles.
“You just spent $3 million” on repaving the city streets, Crnkovich said last year. “I saw that big piece of equipment going down that street, and it don’t look right.” He said the daycare center at the end of E. Third Street raises a safety issue that “needs to be addressed. I don’t want to keep him from farming that field, but that’s not the way to access that field.”
No action was taken by the city council last year, but Wednesday’s incident might serve to bring the issue again before the council at next Monday night’s meeting.
“He was warned a couple of times,” said Patel, who sits on the council and also owns the farmland Harris was working. “If he heard he was hooked on something, he should have stopped instead of going on. He’s disturbing the community. He should have stopped that.”
Harris claimed he was not at fault but that the overhead lines were hanging below the legal height limit.
“I’ve been to council meetings before and explained to them the legal height for wires is 16 foot,” Harris said. “That’s what the DOT tells you, and Alliant will tell you the same thing. We told the city council that. They had a big meeting. They were going to ban all farming in the city limits till they had a packed house with a bunch of farmers, and they said, ‘Now wait a minute here. This ain’t going to work.’ This town was built around farming and railroading.”
One Alliant Energy maintenance vehicle arrived shortly after the incident, and a convoy of three more vehicles was seen making its way eastward toward Woodward on Iowa Highway 141 about 7:30 p.m.
The next meeting of the Woodward City Council is Monday, May 14 at 7 p.m. at the Woodward City Hall at 105 E. Second St.
