Car snaps power pole on Powers Road; 1,200 lose power

A driver crashed into and toppled a power pole on Powers Road in southwest Bend early Sunday, then left the scene, knocking out power to about 1,200 area residents, authorities said.

Bend Police Sgt. Mike Landolt said the driver and car involved in the 1:19 a.m. crash was located, but no arrests had been made by midday as the investigation continued.

Pacific Power spokesman Tom Gauntt said the outage occurred at 1:19 a.m. and affected 1,200 customers. Power was rerouted and restored to all but 300 customers by 3:45 a.m. and the rest had service back an hour later, he said.

Utility crews worked for several more hours at the crash scene, replacing the broken pole and restringing the lines, which were reported down and arcing on the road after the crash

Gauntt said just over 300 customers had their power interrupted again for about four hours later Sunday, from noon to 4 p.m., so crews could make final repairs.

Someone who witnessed the crash followed a vehicle from the scene, but that turned out not to be the one involved, Landolt said.

The downed pole on Powers Road was west of the Bend Parkway, and those traffic lights were reported out for a time. Police blocked Powers Road at the Brookswood Boulevard roundabout while the road was cleared.

A pole was knocked down at the same location by an SUV on an icy Christmas Day in 2014, knocking out power to about 1,300 residents, some for nearly 12 hours. A woman who said she was the driver apologized, saying she slid on ice coming out of the roundabout.