Some clouds. Low 84F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Some clouds. Low 84F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.

The city of Galveston is investigating why a 53-foot tall galvanized light pole on the Galveston causeway fell onto the highway Monday evening, damaging five vehicles heading into Galveston.

Three days after the incident, city officials said they had ruled out bad weather and loose nuts as the cause of the mishap, but hadn’t identified a reason other than “the pole broke.”

The mishap happened just before 10 p.m. on the south end of the causeway. The steel pole fell down into the southbound lanes of traffic.

Galveston resident Andy Smith was driving home when he saw the pole starting to fall. He swerved his truck into the far right lane and managed to avoid any major damage, he said.

“It was like slow motion,” Smith said. “It fell flat over.” Smith had somehow noticed the lights at the top of the pole going off and got out of the way in time, he said.

Other people weren’t so lucky. A report from the Galveston Police Department said five vehicles were damaged by the pole. Four of them had to be towed away, police said. No injuries were reported. The light pole was dragged out of the roadway.

It didn’t appear the pole was struck before it fell, police said. The incident happened at the opposite end from where the Texas Department of Transportation was performing roadwork related to the damaged Santa Fe overpass.

The transportation department said it was aware of the fallen pole, but questions about it should be directed to the city, which, under state law, is charged with maintaining the lights on the causeway.

The city by Thursday didn’t know what caused the pole to fall, spokeswoman Marissa Barnett said.

“After inspection, we are certain that it was not due to loose nuts on the pole mounting flange because they were secure,” Barnett said. “It appears that the pole broke where it was welded to the mounting flange.”

There weren’t any strong winds that would have knocked it down on Monday night, she said.

The city’s traffic division inspected the other light poles on the causeway Tuesday and didn’t find anything that made them concerned about their condition, Barnett said.

That didn’t make Smith, who commutes over the causeway daily, feel much safer.

“I’ve been telling everybody they need to pay attention when you go across,” he said.

Editor’s note: Andy Smith is the nephew of Daily News Editor Michael A. Smith.

John Wayne Ferguson: 409-683-5226; john.ferguson@galvnews.com or on Twitter

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Constant exposure to Salt air

I seriously doubt that the poles are steel as the story says. I think they are aluminum.

Article states that the poles are galvanized which by definition is steel. I used to work as an engineer for a large school district. Failure of the weld joint at the mounting flange is common with parking lot light poles. The City of Galveston needs to do a magnetic particle inspection of all the pole base welds since one has fallen. It's not really expensive and is fairly quick.

Allen can please call the and tell city this. This from the article. Thanks

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