Car accident knocks out power in north Hastings

UPDATE (10:00 p.m. 12/18): Power is back on along Burlington Ave. and the Osborne Expressway in north Hastings. Hastings Utilities posted this update on social media: "The outage is largely complete as power was rerouted. Further repairs will be made in the morning to the damaged system."

HASTINGS, Neb. — Hundreds of customers are without power after a car accident in north Hastings.

An SUV crashed into a power pole near the Smith Softball Complex on Wednesday night. As of 9:00 p.m., the Hastings Utilities Outage Map listed almost all areas of Hastings north of the railroad tracks near 18th St. as without power. The power outage extends to Hastings Utilities customers in rural areas north of the city.

A post on the Hastings Utilities Facebook page says the outage happened around 6:00 p.m. It says the accident caused the outage and left wires down and an open breaker.

Hastings Police officers at the crash scene say emergency responders transported one person to the hospital. City officials did not immediately respond to a request for more details about the power outage.