Police said no people were injured and no cars were damaged as a result of the accident, which left debris strewn across four lanes of traffic, the median and sidewalks.
Bischoff, who police say just started his truck driving job on Monday, was cited for unsafe operation of a motor vehicle.
Det. Richard Burkhardt said a traffic officer told him a similar incident occurred once before in the city.
“It snapped a telephone pole and all the wires down on Rigdon (Street) one time, so it’s happened before but it’s not a very common occurrence,” Burkhardt said.
Replacing the heavy-gauge aluminum support structure supporting the sign is estimated to cost between $50,000 to $100,000, said Richard Engle, the city’s director of public works/city engineer.
The city will replace the directional sign and support structure once it receives the insurance money from the trucking company, he said.
“The city does not have any money budgeted to make these kind of repairs immediately,” Engle said.
The repairs are expected to take about a couple of days, he said.
“What they would do is build up the two-side structures and probably have just one lane closure for those and then when they do the piece across the top, they’d have to close both (westbound) lanes,” Engle said.
The sign is owned by the state of Ohio, which asked for Hamilton’s assistance in removing it from the roadway. City crews used chainsaws to cut the metal sign into pieces so it could be more easily removed.
Eastbound traffic was limited to one lane and The Ohio State Highway Patrol assisted Hamilton with traffic efforts.
Monument Avenue and Front Street experienced traffic backups as a result of the accident but that was alleviated after all lanes reopened around 11 a.m.
The trucking company declined to comment on the incident.
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