MILROY — Craig Bubb has been working with the Mifflin County Municipal Authority for nearly 30 years, and nothing during that time compares to Friday, April 17, when a tractor trailer carrying potato chips and popcorn crashed through a guardrail on the Seven Mountains and plunged into the Laurel Creek Reservoir.

The crash released fuel, oil and other fluids into the reservoir, prompting immediate concern about Mifflin County’s primary water source.

“It was by far the worst — Friday, Saturday and Sunday — I’ve had go down in the books here in my 29 years,” said Bubb, executive director of the municipal authority.

The driver, Steven Larrabee, 72, of Christiana, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Mifflin County Coroner Andrea Alcalde.

Since that day, Bubb and the municipal authority have worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to fortify the access road to prevent a crash of this nature from happening again.

“They put through an emergency contract for a tractor-trailer-proof guardrail for the old access road,” Bubb explained. “We had it blocked off.”

Now, the 80-foot area is protected with additional heavy posts and double railing connected to the sturdy railing on either side of the access road. It should prevent a tractor trailer traveling an estimated 55 to 60 miles per hour from barreling through.

There’s more work to be done, Bubb said. “There’s another access road above that,” he added. “We’ve asked them to do the same thing. Hopefully that’s sometime in the near future.”

Municipal authority officials also discovered that something had struck a transformer at King Street in Milroy — likely lightning — which serves as the source of power for the backup wells.

“It surged our transformer to the point where it melted the entry cable to the well and the glass to the entry meter,” Bubb said.

When something like that happens, there’s no way to know power levels have been impacted. When Bubb and others went to check on the backup, they were met by workers from Penelec.

“It’s not atypical,” Bubb said. “We’re going to set a new pole and transformer. Is that going to fix the fact there’s no power at the well? No. The meter base was melted.”

In the weeks after the incident, the meter base was replaced. Bubb said it took time because the parts needed were “not something you just buy off the shelf.”

The system is checked weekly and run quarterly.

Now that it’s functional again and the heavy-duty railing is in place, Bubb believes it’s back to normal for the municipal authority. “We did run two additional samples,” Bubb said of water testing. “We identified two that were required by the DEP and did two more the following Monday and Wednesday.

“All samples came back non-detected,” Bubb added. “So everything is good. We are taking steps so that something even close to being similar again doesn’t happen here and are changing some safety patrol protocols.”

The incident also showed that municipal authority and other government officials, law enforcement and first responders work well together during a potential catastrophe.

“We had a follow-up meeting with all of those involved — police, rescue teams, etc. — and we agreed that everyone came together. It was a really good effort by everybody.”