Tractor-trailer strike knocks out power, closes North Church Street in Goshen

A tractor-trailer strike on North Church Street in Goshen knocked out power to several homes and shut down a key stretch of roadway before crews restored service and reopened the street around 12:30 p.m. The crash turned an ordinary morning route into a brief disruption for residents and drivers between Five Corners and Mike Nuzzolese Way, where traffic was diverted while repairs were made.

Orange & Rockland said the pole was damaged badly enough that it had to be replaced. The utility initially expected power to be restored by 5 p.m., but the Village of Goshen later told residents that electricity was back, repairs were complete and North Church Street had reopened to regular traffic.

The incident underscored how vulnerable a narrow village corridor can be when a commercial vehicle veers off course. North Church Street is part of the roughly 20 miles of streets maintained by the Village of Goshen Department of Public Works, which means even a single pole strike can pull local crews, utility workers and traffic control into a coordinated response.

The road segment also carries local significance. Mike Nuzzolese Way honors Michael Dominic Nuzzolese, a former Goshen mayor and village public works superintendent who died in March 2021 at age 66. For drivers who know the area, that made the closure more than a line on a traffic map: it cut through a stretch tied to village history as well as daily commuting patterns.

Orange & Rockland directs customers to its outage-reporting and service-status tools to track problems like the one that unfolded on North Church Street, a reminder that even a short outage can ripple through a neighborhood before the grid is stabilized and repairs are completed. In this case, the interruption lasted only a few hours, but it was long enough to leave several residents without power and force a detour through the village.

The Goshen crash also came less than two months after another tractor-trailer incident in the village. On April 22, a southbound truck on Hatfield Lane lost control and struck a fire hydrant, utility box and building, and Village of Goshen Police said the driver suffered a medical emergency. Taken together, the two crashes suggest that large truck traffic remains a recurring safety and infrastructure concern in this part of Goshen, where a single mistake can quickly affect homes, roads and public utilities.