Traffic ground to a halt on 10th Avenue Wednesday morning while crews worked to replace two damaged power poles between Eighth and 12th streets.
New Westminster police were called to the scene of a single-vehicle crash around 6 a.m. The vehicle had crashed into a power pole, damaging two along the south side of 10th Avenue, according to New Westminster police.
The driver was checked over by paramedics and determined to be uninjured, however the damage to the power poles was severe enough that they needed to be replaced, noted Rod Carle, general manager of electric utility for the City of New Westminster.
“Two poles were hit; one belongs to the City of New West electrical, one belongs to B.C. Hydro,” Carle said.
The crash initially knocked out power to about 1,000 residents in New Westminster, but crews were able to reroute some of the lines, restoring power to about half of the residents affected shortly after.
Police immediately closed off access to 10th Avenue between Eighth and 12th streets (Canada Way and Kingsway on the Burnaby side) to offer crews with the City of New Westminster and B.C. Hydro the space needed to replace the two poles.
