My former neighbors on Byron Road have been asking why power was out near Prosser and Mabton this morning on their Facebook feeds and now we know what caused the outage. 

A traffic accident with a truck slamming into a power pole seems to be the culprit.

Benton Rea posted on their social media this message:

Outage Update: Crews are replacing a pole that was struck this morning in a vehicle accident. Power was rerouted to 240 members in the Prosser/Mabton areas from a different transmission line, but 160 are still without power. A momentary outage will occur for the 240 members with power when they are connected back to the correct transmission line.

Once again, thank you for your patience as our crews work as safely and quickly as possible. Drive safely, everyone.


Glad no one got hurt but after looking at the accident photo, the driver was very lucky. It's another somber reminder that black ice on country roads can be deceiving.