Thousands of customers lost power in El Monte after a driver crashed into a fire hydrant Monday night, fire officials said.
The crash was reported around 11:45 p.m. after a vehicle crashed into the hydrant near the intersection of Rosemead Boulevard and Rush Street, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The collision sent water spraying in the air and hit live power lines, causing a transformer to blow, according to the LACFD.
Southern California Edison and LADWP were called to the scene and cut off power and water to the affected areas.
About 3,800 customers were initially affected by the outage. Around 1:45 p.m., power restored to all but 761 customers. Power was expected to be restored to remaining customers around 10 a.m., according to SCE.
It was unknown if the driver who caused the crash stayed at the scene, according to the LACFD.
Rosemead Boulevard and Rush Street were closed in both directions. It was unclear when the streets would reopen.
