A motor vehicle incident was to blame when power was knocked out to a large number of homes and businesses late Monday night.
The lights went out to 671 customers, BC Hydro reported, inside the borders of University Way, Parsnip Crescent, Central Street and Ospika Boulevard. It was about 9:40 p.m., and caused lights to flicker momentarily as far away as the Hart and Cranbrook Hill neighbourhoods. Inside the dark zone, BC Hydro crews worked until 2:19 a.m. to restore electricity.
The collision took place in the vicinity of 15th Avenue and Ahbau Street.
"According to the male driver, age 40, he was changing lanes and lost control, causing him to strike the pole head-on," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass. "The pole was dangling from the wires, sheered off at the base. There were no downed lines, but the pole and transformer had issues."
An off-duty police member was one of the first on the scene. The driver of the vehicle was issued a traffic ticket for driving too fast relative to road conditions. He was not significantly injured.
- In another area of the region on Monday - the Upper Fraser communities of Longworth and Sinclair Mills - trees fell across power lines causing an outage for about 70 customers. The blackout happened just before 3 a.m. and the power was out for approximately six hours.
