About 700 Alabama Power customers in west Mobile briefly lost electricity early Friday morning after a car crash struck a power pole, according to a utility spokeswoman.
Alabama Power spokeswoman Beth Thomas said reports of the outage began arriving before 7:15 a.m., with a vehicle striking a power pole identified as the cause. Crews worked to restore service to the affected area, with power fully back on by around 8:20 a.m., roughly an hour after the outage was first reported.
Thomas did not specify the exact location of the crash that triggered the outage. However, Mobile Fire-Rescue crews responded around 7 a.m. to a separate report of a crash at the intersection of Old Shell Road and Foreman Road in west Mobile. A fire department spokesman confirmed crews responded to that call but did not say whether a utility pole was damaged as part of that particular accident.
Outages caused by vehicle crashes into utility poles are a recurring issue on busy corridors like Old Shell Road, where a mix of high traffic volume, intersections and roadside infrastructure can turn a single-vehicle accident into a wider service disruption. Alabama Power maintains crews on standby to respond to these kinds of incidents, particularly during morning and evening commute hours when traffic volume is highest.
West Mobile is one of the more densely populated parts of the city, home to numerous residential subdivisions, schools and retail centers along the Airport Boulevard, Cottage Hill Road and Old Shell Road corridors. A power interruption affecting hundreds of customers during the morning commute can ripple into disrupted schedules for households getting ready for work and school, even when restoration crews respond quickly.
Alabama Power urges customers to report outages directly through its customer service line or mobile app, which the company says helps crews pinpoint problem areas more quickly than waiting for a full damage assessment. The utility also reminds drivers to steer clear of downed lines and damaged poles following any crash, since lines can remain energized even after an outage has been reported.
No injuries connected to the crash were disclosed as of the utility’s update.