UPDATED 7:30AM: We’re back on the air again, but KNCO was knocked off the airwaves for several hours yesterday after a power pole broke and caught fire. Nevada County Consolidated Battalion Chief Josh Sunde says the pole broke just off to the side of the main entrance….
Nevada County Consolidated Fire District Battalion Chief Josh Sunde says the radio station lost power, smoke was still coming from the bottom the pole, and there were flames near the top of a large tree next to the building…
That happened about a half-hour later, and East Main Street was re-opened, but power is still out to the station…
The station was evacuated until the gas was turned off. A generator was brought in to get the station back on the air around 11 o’clock last night. Sunde says there will still be a lot of repairs to be made…
It was originally thought the cause of the pole breaking was a lightning strike, but P-G-and-E has ruled that out. No one was hurt. The incident happened after 3pm during KNCO’s ‘Swap Shop’ program.
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Arnold N Goldberg
Illumination-The lamp Dr has also been affected due to the lack of power since they are in the same building as KNCO! The store was forced to close and evacuate because of the gas leak.
Bobbie
I was driving up East Main on Monday around 3:00 when all of a sudden, out of the blue, the transformer on a pole ACROSS THE STREET from KNCO blew up in a big fireball. At first I thought it might have been lightning, though it was hardly even raining at the time. The traffic light at Dorsey Road and the lights on nearby businesses went out for just a second or two, then came back on. It was a spectacular explosion which scared me, so I immediately pulled to the side of the road. The pole with the blown transformer had a wire connected to a pole on the KNCO side of the street and I was afraid to cross under it for fear the wire would break. I waited about 30 seconds; the fire went out and the pole seemed to be otherwise intact, so I proceeded up to Dorsey Drive without further incident.