Newhall Avenue was temporarily closed down after an SUV rammed into an electrical pole on Friday morning, causing it and some power lines to fall into the street.
The collision was first reported to the Los Angeles County Fire Department just before 6 a.m. near Newhall Avenue’s intersection with Sierra Highway. All of Newhall Avenue, between Valle del Oro and Sierra Highway, was closed for hours — leaving drivers coming into Santa Clarita from Highway 14 no other option than turning around and getting back on the highway.
Newhall Avenue’s westbound lane was eventually opened up a few hours later, with both directions opening back up around noon.
The city of Santa Clarita said the power line knocked down from the collision was live. Jeff Monford, spokesman for Southern California Edison, warned residents to never approach a downed power line and if they are in their car, to remain there and call 9-1-1. Downed lines are extremely dangerous.
Monford said 3,700 customers were initially affected by an outage caused by the downed line. However, computer systems — designed to reroute electricity around a break — were able to partially restore power at 6:50 a.m. As of 1:45 p.m. 82 customers were without power. Monford said 8 p.m. Friday was the estimated time power would be restored to those customers.
There were no reported injuries as a result of either the traffic collision or the downed line.
