There was a major backup on 101 Thursday morning impacting both northbound and southbound lanes, following a collision near the Highway 37 interchange in Novato that took out a power pole and sparked a small brush fire.
The Novato Police Department put out an alert about the collision at 9:49 am Thursday, saying that Highway 101 was entirely closed, including the on- and off-ramps connected to Highway 37, as well as the South Novato Blvd on- and off-ramps at Gateway Court.
As KTVU reports, the crash appeared to involve a white SUV that ended up far off the roadway in grass and marshland, and the vehicle had a massive vertical impact scar on its driver's side which might have been where it hit a nearby power pole, which was fully knocked to the ground.
A grass fire was also sparked after the power lines came down, as seen in photos posted to X by CHP.
PG&E reported that the crash caused an outage for around 6,000 power customers in south Novato and near Marin Bel Keys.
The Novato PD subsequently announced as of 10:46 am that Highway 101 was back open, though traffic appeared heavy in the area as of noon on Thursday. The on-ramp to Highway 37 eastbound remained closed, however, as did the South Novato Boulevard on-ramp to Highway 37 eastbound, and there were reportedly vehicles in the area that were trapped on the roadway and unable to move because downed power lines.
As of 12:10 pm, CHP-Marin posted to X that all lanes, including the on-ramps, were back open.
No information is yet available about the cause of the crash or the whereabouts of the driver.
This is a developing story.
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