JUNEAU — A dog was killed after it stepped on an electrically charged junction box on a Juneau city sidewalk.
Rorie Watt, the City and Borough of Juneau's engineering director, said the junction box is city property. Watt said the matter was under investigation.
"I guess there's a question about who was doing work on this junction box most recently and is there a contractor that has some responsibility in this situation," he told the Juneau Empire.
He said all of Juneau's street lighting wires are underground in conduits, protected by junction boxes on the sidewalk with metal lids over them.
A woman was walking her dog around midnight Saturday near a construction site downtown when the dog stepped on a metal lid and was electrocuted, said Lt. David Campbell, a Juneau police spokesman. The woman was not injured, he said. Her name was not released.
City and borough risk manager Jennifer Mannix, who is in charge of determining liability, said she called the dog's owner to apologize.
"We fixed the immediate problem, but with all the construction going on in that area, we haven't figured out how the junction box became live," she said.