{"id":5349,"date":"2021-01-18T10:28:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T15:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=5349"},"modified":"2021-01-18T12:46:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T17:46:41","slug":"toms-river-dwi-accident-causes-downed-pole-power-outages-and-brush-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2021\/01\/toms-river-dwi-accident-causes-downed-pole-power-outages-and-brush-fires\/","title":{"rendered":"Toms River DWI Accident Causes Downed Pole, Power Outages and Brush Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Police<\/a>

Police Lights (Photo: Jason Rojas\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

An accident that police say was caused by a drunk driver led to a massive response in Toms River Sunday night, and left many homeowners without power for a period of time.<\/p>\n

According to police spokeswoman Jillian Messina, officers were dispatched at about 8 p.m. to the intersection of Bay Avenue and Tanglewood Road for reports of a motor vehicle accident with two utility poles damaged.<\/p>\n

Wilfredo Flores, 47 of Toms River, was traveling east on Bay Avenue, according to police. While negotiating a curve in the roadway, he allegedly answered a call on his mobile phone. As a result, Flores swerved off the roadway to the right, hitting a curb and a utility pole.<\/p>\n

The impact of the crash split the pole in half and subsequently damaged a second pole due to excessive wire tension. After impact, Flores allegedly fled east and was subsequently stopped by a concerned citizen. He was arrested and charged with DWI \u201cfollowing an on-scene investigation into his sobriety,\u201d Messina said.<\/p>\n

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Several neighborhoods on the east side of town were without power throughout the night while Verizon and JCP&L worked to repair the damaged poles. The downed utility poles ignited two brush fires that were quickly extinguished by Toms River Fire Companies 1 and 2. Traffic Lights were out on Bay Avenue between Vaughn Avenue Indian Hill Road for hours.<\/p>\n

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Flores was charged with DWI, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, failure to report an accident, unregistered vehicle, and a cell phone violation. The vehicle was impounded pursuant to John\u2019s Law.<\/p>\n

The accident is being investigated by Toms River Traffic Safety Officer Robert Westfall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An accident that police say was caused by a drunk driver led to a massive response in Toms River Sunday night, and left many homeowners without power for a period of time. According to police spokeswoman Jillian Messina, officers were dispatched at about 8 p.m. to the intersection of Bay Avenue and Tanglewood Road for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[1183,909,900,333,11,1182],"class_list":["post-5349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","tag-bay-avenue","tag-drunk-driving","tag-dwi","tag-motor-vehicle-accident","tag-toms-river-nj-news","tag-wilfredo-flores"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-10-26-at-3.09.49-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}