An accident involving a fork lift Monday afternoon has left areas in the northern part of Auburn without power.

According to the Auburn Police Department, a Hyster brand fork lift operated by Benjamin Cruz, an employee of Corrosion Control Inc., 10 Quarry Road, was traveling west on York Street when it lost its brakes, struck New York State Energy and Gas pole 408 and a city street sign, and then turned right onto Quarry Road. The accident happened around 1 p.m.

Upon impact, the fork lift took the NYSEG pole off its foundation and pulled down electric and phone wires.

While the initial accident interrupted electrical service for only two NYSEG customers, power was turned off for about 50 customers in the immediate area to allow for repairs, according to Don Blair, NYSEG line foreman.

Power is expected to return to all customers by late Monday evening.

Three phone cables, maintained by Verizon, were also pulled down, said Heather Wilner, a Verizon spokesperson. Once NYSEG completes its repairs and the area is safe, she said, Verizon will work non-stop throughout the night to string new cable.

While Wilner was unable to say how many customers were affected by the outage, she expected repairs to be completed and service returned to customers by Tuesday morning.

Auburn Police ticketed Cruz, of Wolcott, for traffic violations as the fork lift was not permitted to be on public roads, officials said. He was charged with having an unregistered motor vehicle and operating without insurance.