A Chevrolet Trailblazer slammed into a utility pole on Silverado Trail in Napa Wednesday morning, downing live wires, shutting a stretch of the road, and cutting electricity to more than 1,000 customers. The crash happened near the Pope Street intersection and left crews scrambling to clear tangled lines from the pavement while the highway remained closed in both directions.
The California Highway Patrol reported the crash shortly before 11 a.m., according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The Napa Valley Register pinpointed the collision at about 10:50 a.m. at the Silverado Trail and Pope Street intersection. The wreck downed power lines and led authorities to shut down Silverado Trail between Zinfandel Lane and Pope Street, as napavalleyregister.com reported.
The Trailblazer suffered heavy front-end damage after taking out the pole at its base, according to kron4.com. Wires were left hanging low to the ground at the scene, the station reported, and Pacific Gas and Electric crews were dispatched to the site, per the California Highway Patrol. There was no immediate word on injuries or on what caused the crash, kron4.com noted.
Road Closure And Detours
The California Highway Patrol urged drivers to avoid the area and use Highway 29 instead, per the Chronicle's reporting. PG&E took over management of the road closure shortly after 1 p.m. as its crews worked on the damaged equipment. Drivers were likewise being advised to steer clear of the closure, the same account from kron4.com noted.
Estimates on when Silverado Trail would reopen differed between outlets. Authorities told the Chronicle the road might remain closed until later Wednesday evening or into early Thursday. The Napa Valley Register, however, reported there was no immediate estimate as to when the road would reopen.
Second Crash In A Week On The Same Corridor
Wednesday's crash came less than a week after an 85-year-old Lafayette man was critically injured in a separate crash on Silverado Trail near Oak Knoll Avenue, according to the Chronicle. In that incident, a Toyota Tundra veered off the roadway and struck a tree.
Silverado Trail has seen repeated disruptions from crashes involving its roadside utility poles. In March, a head-on collision involving multiple vehicles near Stag's Leap Wine Cellars shut the highway in both directions between Oak Knoll Avenue and Yountville Cross Road, with at least four major injuries reported, according to pressdemocrat.com; no reopening time had been given as of early afternoon that day.
A separate overnight crash on the same road saw a Ford F-350 pickup strike a PG&E pole at Silverado Trail and Sousa Lane, initially cutting power to 2,400 customers before the driver fled the scene, according to Napa police as reported by the Napa Valley Register. Napa police closed that stretch, from Sousa Lane north to the five-way intersection at Third Street, for about seven hours, and power was restored to all but 384 customers by midnight, with the final nine customers back online by 7:45 a.m., the outlet reported. A similar crash in December 2018 at the same Sousa Lane location knocked out power to 2,445 PG&E customers and closed Silverado Trail overnight, with police reopening the road by 8:42 a.m. the next day, according to patch.com; PG&E crews worked through the night without an initial estimate on when repairs would be finished.
