Story Created:
Nov 1, 2009 at 1:03 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Nov 1, 2009 at 7:41 PM EDT
FORT MYERS- Power is restored to LCEC customers on Pine Island and Sanibel Island.
The outage happened around 11am Sunday after a sailboat mast caught fire while sailing near the power lines above Matlacha Pass between Pine Island and Sanibel Island.
"They were driving up matlacha pass, the power lines have less clearance in matlacha pass and they ran into the power lines," said Dylan Everdell with Sea Tow.
Boat Captain Carol Robison says she has more than a decade of sailing experience but they were in unfamiliar waters. "We were in really pushing tide and when we realized that we weren't going to clear the power lines, we reversed it but it just pushed us right into the first line," said Robison.
All of the electronics on the boat were destroyed. The mast briefly caught fire but the boat was largely intact. Sea Tow pulled the boat into the Fort Myers Beach Marina this afternoon. No one was hurt in the accident.
Within two hours LCEC crews restored power to roughly 16,000 customers.
