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Power Outages Cause Confusion on 10th Avenue South

By Rachel Ousley

Story Created: Jan 26, 2012 at 8:49 PM MST

Story Updated: Jan 27, 2012 at 11:25 AM MST

The saying goes everyone wants to be somewhere yesterday, but when power is out on a major road like 10th Avenue South in Great Falls we all need to use a little common sense and a lot of precaution.

Deana Sullivan is a Great Falls resident that was traveling on 10th Avenue South yesterday during the wind storm when the power went out. She describes, “as I’m eating lunch, I keep seeing people just going through the lights, or lack of lights, and not stopping or anything”.

10th Avenue South is one of the busiest roads in town on normal days. With yesterday’s wind storm, it was a bit of a headache. Sullivan explains, “trying to make a left hand turn on 10th was almost impossible, not as bad as those trying to come on to 10th Ave. from side streets”. Sgt. Bryan Slavik with the Great Falls Police Department says traffic on 9th street was the worst because 9th Street and 10th Ave. is one of the busiest intersections.

Yet, all this confusion could have been avoided. Slavik says, “if you come to an uncontrolled intersection, which they are now uncontrolled because the light isn’t working, every vehicle is required to stop and yield to the right of way”.

Overall authorities say drivers handled the situation fairly well. Sullivan says, “there were people who wanted to follow the rules and do the stopping, but when you've got other people who are constantly going and you’re stopping to try and let people go, it’s not going to work”.

Luckily, there was only one minor accident on 10th Avenue South yesterday due to the power outage. It could have been much worse. Sullivan says, “somebody is going to try and make that turn because they need to get through, but then you’re going to have that person that thinks they have the right of way and they’re going to barrel through and you’re bound to have an accident somewhere”.

Police advise drivers to be courteous and avoid problem areas. Slavik says, “the back roads will be much, much quicker and avoid traffic jams”. Also use common sense. Slavik reminds, “regardless of what traffic laws are, you have a duty of care to make sure that it’s safe to go before you go. You should never assume it’s just your right of way and pull into traffic and expect somebody to stop for you”.

Police may not be always be able to direct traffic. Sullivan says, “I don’t believe they should do that as a priority because people should know that when the lights go down, it’s considered a 4 way stop, period”. Calls into dispatch are prioritized and yesterday there were just too many other important places to be that police were unable to direct traffic.

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Anonymous said on Sunday, Jan 29 at 1:52 PM

good story - well done

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