Car crash on Richmond Highway knocks out power
Update 2: As of 11:15 a.m., all but two customers have power fully restored, according to Dominion’s outage map.
Update 1: As of 7 a.m. Monday more than 1,000 people remained without power, mostly in the Huntington and Belle Haven areas. Only one lane of southbound Richmond Highway was open between Quander Road and Mount Eagle Drive.
As of 9 a.m., the number dropped below 1,000. The traffic signal at the intersection of Richmond Highway and Quander Road is still dark, and witnesses report that there is no traffic being directed.
Original story:
A one-car crash Sunday evening left a woman injured and knocked out power for thousands of residents.
The crash happened a little before 7:15 p.m. in the 6100 block of Richmond Highway, in between Huntington and Penn Daw. A Nissan Altima traveling northbound lost control and entered the southbound lanes after Quander Road, striking a utility pole, according to officers who responded to the incident. It’s not clear how the driver ended up in the southbound lanes.
The driver was transported to a local hospital; police at the scene told onlookers that the driver’s injuries were non-life-threatening. A tweet by Fairfax Fire and Rescue indicated that the driver needed to be cut out of the door.
The crash severely damaged the pole and almost immediately knocked out power for nearly 5,000 residents in the area, according to Dominion Energy. Among the affected communities were Huntington, Jefferson Manor, Fairhaven, Wilton Woods, Groveton, Belle Haven, the Cityside at Huntington Metro apartments, as well as numerous businesses and hotels in the Huntington and Penn Daw areas.
Traffic lights on Richmond Highway and North Kings Highway also went completely dark for a period of time.
As of 9:50 p.m., around 1,140 customers were still without power, according to Dominion’s outage map. Dominion estimates that power will be fully restored between midnight and 5 a.m.
One southbound lane of Richmond Highway was reopened shortly before 9 p.m.
Sunday night’s crash was not far from where a January accident on Route 1 destroyed a power pole and knocked out power for thousands of residents, with a couple hundred without power for more than 17 hours.
Sunday’s power outage also marked the second power outage in three days for many residents. A Friday evening outage knocked out electricity for residents from Huntington to Rose Hill. It’s not clear what caused that outage.
I was heading southbound on Richmond Highway around 7 PM and was stuck in traffic. I was wondering what happened and checked this site. You all do a great job informing us on what happens in the neighborhood in real time! Thanks for the work that you do.
The accident caused nearby transformers to blow with shifting power demands. They have not figured out that the transformer on RT1 at Springhill Suites exploded at 714. They have bigger problems then they realize. I sent pics to Dom power
In case anyone is interested: The 9/22 Rose Hill/ Huntington outage was caused by an animal getting into one of the substations, getting electrocuted and causing a failure to one of the switches. This was documented at the time on Dominion Power’s website.