VIDEO: Tractor-trailer loses load, hits utility pole in Gastonia

GASTONIA, N.C. — A tractor-trailer lost its load Wednesday morning, blocking a Gastonia highway.

Dispatchers said it happened just before 8 a.m. Wednesday.

A neighbor showed Channel 9′s Ken Lemon their doorbell camera video that captured the incident.

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VIDEO: Tractor-trailer loses load, hits utility pole in Gastonia

The truck flipped and lost its load of scrap metal, and crews were working to clear the debris left behind. That debris included car engines, and it was all scattered in nearby yards.

A utility pole was also damaged in the process.

Investigators said no one was hurt.

Police confirmed South York Road, which is Highway 321, was closed between Jackson Street and West 12th Avenue. The road was expected to stay closed for several hours.

Traffic was diverted through a nearby neighborhood.

‘I thought it was going to hit my house’

Linda Allman said the doorbell camera video was nothing like seeing and feeling it in person.

“I heard him hop the curb,” she said.

Allman was looking out of the window of her business across the street.

“I heard the brakes, ‘yeek, yeek, yeek, yeek.’ And the next thing I know, I watched it just start rolling,” she said. “And I actually took off running inside because I thought it was going to hit my house.”

Massive car engine blocks, hot water heaters, and other heavy items were scattered all over Highway 321. Some came within feet of hitting homes there.

Police said the driver was going too fast for the conditions.

Allman said it left one of the largest messes they have seen in a long time there, but the cause is very familiar.

“We see it all day long,” she said. “They are going 45, 55 -- they are going entirely too fast through this area.”

Allman said the problem isn’t just the speed -- the speed limit is 35 miles per hour. She said the lanes are narrow, far too narrow for a highway that attracts big trucks near residential homes.

“The telephone poles -- every one of them on both sides of the street down through here -- for the last three years, I have watched almost every one of them be replaced,” she said.

Allman said police have had speed checks and a new red light was added down the street, but the problem continues. Now, she asks people to look at what can happen.

“Slow down!” she said.

South York Road looks like a neighborhood road but it is state maintained. Lemon asked the Department of Transportation about crashes there, the cause, and anything they have planned or will do to make changes.

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