By Andrew Gorosko

A Toddy Hill Road auto accident at 2:37 pm on Saturday, December 17, which brought down a utility pole, also caused a lengthy road closure and detours, plus an isolated power outage, as crews worked to repair the damage caused by the impact.

Police report that motorist Alyssa Birrittella, 17, of Sandy Hook was driving a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV southward on a slush-covered Toddy Hill Road, when the vehicle lost traction and then skidded into a snowbank along the right side of the street, after which it collided with a utility pole near 118 Toddy Hill Road.

The impact caused the Jeep to reenter the roadway, travel across the road, and then drive off its left shoulder and enter a wooded area, police said. A storm had dropped several inches of snow on the area that morning.

Birrittella was not injured in the accident, police said.

The impact caused a Frontier Communications utility pole to snap, breaking the pole in half, requiring that the pole be replaced, police said.

The broken pole was positioned on the west side of Toddy Hill Road, between Toddy Hill Road's intersections with Settlers Lane on the north and Surrey Trail on the south. Consequently, police used those two roads as the detour route to channel both northbound and southbound traffic on Toddy Hill Road around the accident scene, where the required repairs took until 4 am on Sunday, December 18, to complete.

The accident scene was near the driveway for Masonicare at Newtown, which contains a nursing home and an assisted-living complex. Police said they directed the many workers at that facility into and out from the Masonicare driveway, as needed, as utility pole repairs were underway.

The accident damage resulted in two homes in the area temporarily losing their electrical service, police said.

After investigating the accident, police issued Birrittella an infraction for traveling too fast for conditions, and for making a restricted turn.

Police responded to several other accidents in town amid slippery road conditions on December 17, following the snow storm. (See Police Reports.)