They say lightning strikes twice.
Just ask Clayton Wood.
On Friday, July 7, a motorist on Back Road took out a telephone pole and ran through the back fence of his house on Farquharson Drive, where he lives with his wife and children.
He and his wife Jane recently purchased the house, where Wood had lived as a child. When he was a teenager in 1996, a similar event occurred when a car drove off Back Road and into the yard, taking out a water main and flooding the house, as well as some neighboring homes.
“My dad (Angus Wood) wrote a letter to the city, warning them that it’s a dangerous corner,” Wood said. “It’s kind of funny that almost 20 years later I purchased a house, and not even three weeks into owning it, it’s happened again.”
In Friday’s accident, the car snapped a power pole in half. Three people were in the vehicle. One was transported to hospital.
The couple is asking the City of Courtenay to install a concrete barrier at the bend in question on Back Road.
“We’re just lucky that it hit the telephone pole and didn’t fly right into our yard and maybe take out one of our children, or us,” Wood said. “It never happened to any of the other owners in the last 17 years. It’s kind of a crazy coincidence.”
He figures the damage to his fence is a few thousand dollars.
“It caused a fair amount of damage,” he said, noting the first accident caused significantly more damage. “Last time I think it cost the city a lot of money. My dad had warned them about the dangerous corner and the fact there was a water main protruding out of the ground back then. He asked them to lower it and they never did anything about it…Our house was nearly destroyed at the back when it happened before, and we had to live in a hotel for a few months.”
Wood feels more signage and barricading is needed at various points along Back Road.