BURLINGAME (KTVU and wires) -- A stretch of highway 101 from Burlingame to San Mateo re-opened early Monday morning following a construction accident on Friday that sent power lines crashing onto the roadway.
The Broadway on-ramps and off-ramps were closed, causing traffic delays in the area. As of about 9 a.m. they had reopened.
This comes after U.S. 101 was closed to traffic on the Peninsula, forcing thousands of drivers onto alternate routes over the weekend.
The closure stretched two miles, from Burlingame to San Mateo, so that PG&E crews could perform a high-wire act of stringing new wires 1,500 feet along and across the freeway to replace those that fell after a construction accident Friday night.
"We want to make sure we do this work as safely as possible," PG&E spokesperson Brittany McKannay told KTVU, "and we want to do this work at a time that's less impactful to our customers."
At the work site on Broadway in Burlingame, PG&E displayed a mangled piece of the steel transmission tower that was knocked down by an excavator Friday about 9:30 p.m. The tower itself has been moved to a utility yard.
Two wooden poles, 125 feet high, were erected as a temporary replacement.
Crews must use ropes on pulleys to pull the wire, high in the air in work buckets.
It is a painstaking process as they navigate a web of live electrical lines.
PG&E says a CalTrans contractor who was digging and pouring concrete, working on a new overpass, accidentally plowed into the electrical tower, toppling it.
"We will work with the subcontractor, we'll do an investigation, and determine how to move forward with reimbursement," said McKennay," we will work with them to determine what that looks like."
Drivers had to find alternate routes during the closure like El Camino Real and Interstate 280.
"It's affected many people throughout the Peninsula, people who work here, people who live here, all our surrounding communities," CHP Captain Mike Maskarich told KTVU, "but what happened was potentially so catastrophic, and we were so fortunate."
Capt. Maskarich arrived on the scene Friday night to find more than 1,000 cars halted, and power lines strewn along the highway, some of the wires draped on at least four vehicles.
It was chaotic, with drivers driving on the shoulder or driving the wrong way to get out of the gridlock.
The priority was getting the lines de-energized, which didn't happen until almost 3 a.m as power was re-routed.
"Occupants in the cars with live wires on them, they were actually stuck inside them for several hours, " said Maskarich, noting the risk of electrocution had any of them jumped out. "We are grateful for their patience because the threat was very apparent."
101 didn't fully reopen until late Saturday afternoon.
Between San Francisco and San Mateo, the freeway carries an average of 265,000 vehicles a day.
Even after the new 115,000 volt wires are strung, a new transmission tower will have to be installed in time. That too, will require a closure of Highway 101.