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A driver who crashed a car into a pole caused a power outage that initially left 1,135 customers without service in Palo Alto on Sunday, Aug. 6, Palo Alto Utilities officials and police said.
Shortly after 8 a.m., emergency dispatchers received a report of car that had crashed into a utility pole in the 700 block of East Charleston Drive near Middlefield Road, police Capt. James Reifschneider said. The impact of the crash sheared off the top of the pole.
The driver, a woman in her 20s, was treated by Palo Alto fire crews on-site for pain to her chest, lips and nose, which were deemed as minor injuries. She was the only person in the car, a white Hyundai Tucson SUV, which sustained major damage and was towed from the scene. The woman was not cited or arrested, and no other vehicles were involved.
The investigation found that drugs or alcohol were not believed to be factors in the crash, Reifschneider said. PulsePoint, an app that displays emergency calls, showed Palo Alto fire crews responded to a crash at East Charleston and Middlefield roads shortly after 8 a.m. and stayed for about 45 minutes.
Eastbound lanes in the 700 block of East Charleston Road were closed until around 8 p.m. Police advised the public to approach as four-way stops during the day. As of Sunday night, crews were fixing some traffic signals had been in “flashing mode.”
Electrical service was restored shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday to all but 459 customers, who got their power back as of about 8 p.m.
The Meadow Park, Charleston Village and Charleston Gardens neighborhoods were among those impacted by the outage. Patrons at Mitchell Park Library were limited to browsing through material and checkouts until power returned shortly before 1 p.m. Power was also out at Charleston Shopping Center, where stores were closed until electricity returned.
Glad some of us still have gas appliances…
This outage was caused by a single vehicle car crashing into a pole at 8.19 am on a Sunday morning. Many of the places suffering outage were the churches on Middlefield Road!
This is an odd time for a single vehicle crash, odd time for DUI. Perhaps someone was late for church.
I would choose better drivers over gas appliances any day!
Our power was out from 8:07 AM until nearly 6:00 PM. Although we are not dependent upon home medical equipment, it nonetheless made for a long, stressful, and inconvenient day. I worry about how much food went to waste over at the Charleston Shopping Center today, and how many people lost wages as a result.
This young woman clearly needs to improve her driving skills, and Palo Alto could stand to spend its utilities funding not on fiber to the home but placing power lines underground where they belong.
Drivers were completely ignoring the non-working traffic lights at Middlefield x Mayview. Instead of treating the intersection as a four-way stop, as they were supposed to, they just drove right through. Not good!
Texting?
Also, I observed that people DID stop @ the Middlefield/Mayview intersection and at Middlefield/Charleston, and at Middlefield/San Antonio! Because I was there when this happened.
I agree the young woman should be told by police to slow down.
I was at Piazza’s this Monday AM and was horrified to see they lost an immense amount of refrigerated and frozen foods. Staff running around. The cost must be very high to this independently owned store (in case anyone says “oh well, it’s a giant corporation like Safeway,” et. al). That wouldn’t make this unnecessary event ok, either…
And what if others were hit by her?
Anonymous is correct. Piazza’s is not corporate but rather family-owned with exactly two locations, in San Mateo in Palo Alto. They lost power for the full twelve hours.
We have been shopping there for decades. Naturally, I stopped by to offer my sympathies to the shaken staff (whom we know well) and saw yellow caution tape sealing off refrigerator case after refrigerator case. Quick access to a supply of dry ice allowed them to salvage most of their frozen goods, but their refrigerated goods appear to be a total loss.
I visited two other businesses I frequent, Pet Food Express, and Peet’s, to see how they were doing and give them a bit of business. PFE was able to continue operating with old-fashioned carbon credit-card slips, and staff were entering yesterday’s purchases into their system between customers this morning. Peet’s, however, like Piazza’s lost an entire day of business.
Where I come from, actions have consequences. Tell me again why this young woman wasn’t even issued a ticket for destroying public property? Who will pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost inventory and lost business?
This occurred on a Sunday. Trafficwise, it would have been a disaster if it was midweek commute in the school year. For those affected businesses in the Charleston Centre, Weekend business has to be higher than weekday business.