Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
Traffic coming into the Keys for the Labor Day holiday has already brought some issues.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “What happened this morning was there was a car that was going southbound and tried to make a U turn up by Hurricane Hole. It made a U turn through the medium, but it made a U turn for an oncoming car. The oncoming car and the car making a U turn collided and bounced off and then struck a line of parked cars on the side of the road, so ultimately there were about nine cars that were damaged. One was a Jeep which got turned over on its side. There were some minor injuries involved, so we had to have police, fire, rescue, all respond, dealing with medical, traffic control, and then obviously an extensive cleanup, with nine cars that were crashed. So that’s a chaotic scene. The only good thing is, it’s the northbound, so the southbound was still able to flow into Key West but obviously it caused traffic delays southbound, as people are looking, gawking and trying to see what’s going on, it caused a lot of backup in the southbound direction.”
A scene in Tavernier early this morning also caused a dangerous situation involving power lines.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “About 1:15 in the morning, it was a 2024 Toyota Tacoma heading towards Harry Harris Park. A witness says he saw the truck, and that’s a 25 mile an hour zone truck appeared to have been speeding, and the truck went off the road, crashed into a power pole, snapping the pole, causing power lines to go down across the highway, shutting down all of Harry Harris Park community. You can’t get in, you can’t get out. A witness saw the crash, and then the witness saw a white male driver and a white female exit the truck and start running down towards Harry Harris, so most likely a drunk impaired driver at 1:15 in the morning, I suspect probably fled the scene run towards her home. FHP was called in to work the crash, so they’re investigating the crash. Our friends of Florida Keys Electric Co Op had to respond to deal with the energized power lines down on the road. Between the investigation, it’s going to require a tow truck to get them out of the woods. It’s going to require the electric company to get that pole out, put a new pole in, eventually, deal with lines being pulled across the street. It was surprising that slower speed communities to see crash that level with that type of damage, and that pole snap and lines down across the highway.”
Keep your eyes open this holiday weekend.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Pay attention for some rain, a lot of rain out in the Atlantic heading our way. So there will be some on and off showers throughout the day. Be careful about some pooling waters on the roads, and be safe during Labor Day weekend.”