A firefighter with Athens Fire & Rescue watches the scene of a fallen utility pole Tuesday on Clinton Street in Athens. Officials have not determined what caused the fall, which sparked a small grass fire near the street and temporarily left 1600 customers without power.

About 1600 customers, including the temporary Athens High School campus and Athens-Limestone Hospital, were left without power Tuesday after a utility pole fell across Clinton Street.

No obvious cause for the downed line was available, but Athens Utilities Electric Department Manager Blair Davis said crews were working to investigate what led to the pole falling across Clinton Street and sparking a small grass fire near the roadway.

The pole also blocked traffic on Clinton Street from U.S. 72 to Forrest Street for several hours, preventing some residents from going to their homes.

Alex McJunkins, an employee with the United States Postal Service, said he pulled into Sandpiper Apartments mere seconds before the pole fell.

“I had just went under it,” McJunkins said. “I put (the truck) in park, stepped out of my mail truck and boom! It fell.”

He said he had his back to the pole when it fell but the sound of the street light shattering as it hit the road was “really very loud.”

“(The power lines) started arcing, and it traveled over a tree and about lit that on fire. It was smoking, that tree was,” McJunkins said. “Then it shot back, and after it shot back, it (the line) just laid on the road.”

For him, the reason the pole fell is simple. A wind gust got it.

“I mean, probably a 15 to 20 mph wind gust. I’m assuming there was a weak point on the pole somewhere, but in any case, it fell,” he said.

However, Athens Utilities has not listed weather as the definitive cause. Davis said checking poles for weak spots or other issues is “a never-ending process,” and that the cause for a pole going bad can be anything from age to insects to the treatment method used during manufacturing.

“Sometimes they can go bad pretty quick,” he said. “I don’t know that that’s the case here, but they’re investigating now.”

While an estimated 1600 customers were without power at the peak of the outage, crews made restoring power to the hospital a top priority and they were able to restore power to about 800 customers within an hour.

“We were able to do some switching and get about half the customers’ power back,” Davis said.

By 2:30 p.m., power was restored to all customers, according to a Nixle alert from Athens Utilities.