Car Strikes Pole, Knocks Down Power to Hundreds of Novato Residents

By Bay City News Service:

Only six PG&E customers in Novato remained without power Tuesday night after a car struck a power pole in the afternoon, knocking out power to nearly 900 PG&E customers and sparking a small vegetation fire, utility and fire officials said.

 The car lost control while traveling along Alameda del Prado near Cielo Lane at about 1:30 p.m.   It then went through a fence, hit the pole, and ended up on U.S. Highway 101.

 The outage initially affected PG&E customers in the area of the 200 block of Alameda del Prado, Clay Court, McIntosh Court, and Paper Mill Creek Court, Morris said.

 PG&E crews remained at the scene Tuesday night working to repair the outage and get power back to the last few customers, according to PG&E spokeswoman Jana Morris.

 By 5:15 p.m. all but six PG&E customers had power restored. The remaining customers were expected have power restored by 1 a.m., Morris said.

 Novato Fire Protection District officials said the car sheared off the bottom of the power pole and the crash caused two high-voltage lines to go down.

 PG&E was able to quickly secure the 12,500-volt line, but crews awaited specialized equipment to repair the 115,000-volt line that runs across Highway 101, according to Novato fire spokeswoman Sandy Wargo.

 Wargo said police and fire officials were dealing with a three-pronged emergency -- a vehicle crash, an electrical outage and a vegetation fire that was sparked by the crash.

The 100-square-foot fire was quickly extinguished, Wargo said. The driver of the car was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, Wargo said. 

The cause of the crash is under investigation.