Power restored in Santa Maria after driver topples power pole

Santa Maria Police are looking for an early morning hit and run driver who toppled a power pole leaving hundreds of PG&E customers without power.

PG&E says it happened about 4:45 a.m. along Alvin Avenue near the intersection with North Miller Street.

A vehicle slammed into a wooden power pole, shearing it off at the base leaving most of the pole dangling on top of live power lines.

One neighbor says she awoke to noise of a loud boom, came outside and saw sparks flying from the downed power pole and a damaged SUV nearby with smoke coming from the front end.

“Very loud boom, huge, and it was just like sparks flying in the air, like it lit up the sky, like the transformer just blew up”, said Sheila Thomson who lives across the street from the site of the collision.

SMPD says the driver that knocked down the power pole fled the scene.

“The vehicle fled the scene, we have no suspect information at this time, but its created some havoc here on the east side of Santa Maria”, said Santa Maria Police Lt. Russ Mengel, “wires are down in three locations that we have information about and its impacting the early morning school routine for many families here.”

PG&E says power was fully restored to affected customers at 2:50 p.m.

Customers still without power can alert PG&E by visiting pge.com/outage or calling 1-800-743-5002.