Cold appears to cause cable to fall from elevated subway tracks onto cars below in Brooklyn
CYPRESS HILLS, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A cable that fell from overhead subway tracks crashed onto multiple cars, closing a stretch of Fulton Street in Cypress Hills on Friday morning.
The four-inch heavy cable fell onto approximately two blocks of Fulton Street around 6:30 a.m.
Cold weather apparently caused signal and communication cables to drop from the elevated subway onto cars and the street below.
The clips that hold the cables onto the structure seem to have expanded due to the cold, causing the cables to droop.
No one was injured.
MTA crews spent much of the morning removing the cable and helping the owners of the seven cars that were damaged. Many of those cars had their side-view mirrors swiped off.
Eyewitness News was there as Uber driver Frankie Rodriguez returned to his car on Friday morning.
"I just came out from my house to start my day...I came to see all this and I'm just surprised," Rodriguez said.
The MTA said the cables were put back into position at 1:45 p.m. on Friday.
The agency has implemented a temporary fix to lift the cables off the cars by tying them to the overhead structure using nylon rope. A permanent connector will be fabricated in the future to ensure this does happen again.
Elevated J subway service was not affected, but the downed cable forced the closure of Fulton from Elton to Linwood streets for hours.
MTA workers will spend the weekend inspecting the J line, which is the only in this city to use this type of clip, to determine if any are also sagging due to the cold conditions.
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