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Crash, downed power lines, brush fire snarl traffic in Novato
['Kiley Russell', 'Bay City News']
News – NBC Bay Area
All lanes are open and electricity was restored to most PG&E customers in Novato on Thursday afternoon following an outage caused by a solo vehicle crash on U.S. Highway 101 earlier in the day.
At about 9:20 a.m., an elderly woman was driving north in a white Jeep on Highway 101 when she hit a power pole near the state Route 37 interchange, according to California Highway Patrol spokesperson Officer Arthur Tellez.
Traffic backed up for miles as PG&E crews worked to cut power to the lines so fire crews could get in and douse the flames.
The collision and its aftermath left about 6,000 PG&E customers without power, according to utility spokesperson Megan McFarland, but by about 12:35 p.m., only about 700 customers were still affected.
All lanes on Highway 101 were cleared by about 10:40 a.m. and all lanes to Route 37 were cleared by about 1 p.m.