Last week Sloatsburg residents and businesses were checking power chords and wall outlets as the village experienced a sudden afternoon power surge.

And then just as businesses were booting back up, the Sloatsburg Volunteer Fire Department responded to multiple brush fires — several along the NY Thruway and one along Seven Lakes Drive.

The power surge was caused when an E. DeMarino & Sons Trucking & Topsoil dump truck in Tuxedo backed into and snagged a power transmission line that created a flash through the system, from south Mahwah to Harriman. The incident took place while the truck worked on top of the mountain of topsoil that rises above Rt. 17 at the Orange and Rockland county line. The truck’s raised bed caught a power line, then pulled the line away as it drove forward, breaking the insulator at the top of the power pole and creating a flash through the system and leaving the snapped line live on the ground.

Sloatsburg Volunteer Fire Department Second Assistant Chief Chris Morse said the Seven Lakes Drive brush fire was caused by the Tuxedo power surge.

“It’s also very dry out,” Morse said, explaining that the Thruway fires could have been coincidental and caused by overheated brakes on a tractor trailer that sent out sparks.

Orange & Rockland spokesman Mike Donavan said that the DeMarino incident affected two high power transmission lines — the South Mahwah to Sloatsburg line and the Sloatsburg to Harriman line. Both lines are bulk transmission lines which move electricity from one O&R substation to another. Neither were customer lines.

Donovan said the South Mahwah to Sloatsburg line reset automatically. The damaged downed power line at the DeMarino site created surges as the line attempted to reset. The wires heated up and caused circuit trips along the line.

“We have been asking DeMarino for several years to move the pile out of there,” Donovan said about the DeMarino top soil site, which various local groups and agencies are beginning to view as a possible Mulch Pile II for the Town of Tuxedo. The DeMarino site was part of a presentation at the recent Ramapo Rivers Watershed Conference.

“Transmission lines need a certain amount of clearance  – 18 feet. But it you change the landscape, you also change the clearance. If you alter the landscape on our easements, then you alter the operation of the line,” Donovan said.

O&R crews worked all day last Wednesday to repair the transmission line, which was finally repaired around midnight. Donovan said the DeMarino site is an O&R concern as the site has continued to grow. O&R is also currently working on an embankment reinforcement project in north Tuxedo that involves the NY Department of Environmental Commission interaction.

Donovan said that the size and condition of the DeMarino site has been a topic of conversation between the DEC and O&R.  The enormous top soil pile now occupiess O&R easement property, borders the Ramapo River and rises above Rt. 17 — a man made mountain.

“He’s going to get a bill,” Donovan said about DeMarino Trucking. “He broke our equipment. If you run into the equipment and break it, you have to pay for it.”