A vehicle crashed into a power line pole Monday morning near the intersection of Midland Road and Songbird Drive, causing a power outage for many businesses in the area that lasted all day.
Billings police said the accident was caused by a road rage incident that escalated to the point where one driver cut another vehicle off, forcing it to swerve off the road and into the pole.
The crash was a shocking event for employees working in businesses along Midland Road, including Rachel Visser.
"Just out of nowhere, I heard a loud bang," Visser said. "I thought for sure someone was injured."
Visser is an employee at Sign Pro, which makes custom signs for customers and is located less than 100 yards from where the accident happened. She said they lost power as soon as the collision happened.
"As soon as I heard the bang, the power was out," Visser said. "I honestly assumed the worst because I couldn't tell what caused the noise. I was ready to drop to the ground and hide."
When Visser stepped outside, she saw the damage and feared that people weren't going to clear the area soon enough.
"I saw the pole kind of shifted and I just thought it was going to fall and hurt someone," Visser said. "I started yelling, 'Move out of there, move out of there!'"
Eventually, the initial chaos from the crash had passed, but Visser and her fellow employees still couldn't work. Sign Pro is heavily reliant on power to take orders, print signs, and process designs.
"Yeah, we really can't do anything," Visser's coworker Emily Conway said. "We have to let customers know that our power is out, and we can't really get to them because we can't do anything."
And they weren't the only ones affected. Next-door neighbor GCR Tire was without power all of Monday as well, and employee Andy Rubalcaba said he believes it affected even more businesses along Midland Road.
"I think it took out the power all along the road because we had people coming out of their businesses and they were trying to see what was going on," Rubalcaba said.
Rubalcaba said he heard the crash and was one of the first on scene.
"I hear it and I was right there and so I came out to see what was going on because I wanted to make sure everyone was okay," Rubalcaba said.
Rubalcaba said from what he heard on scene, it sounded like an argument had escalated and then caused the wreck.
"They had said that it was not so much as an altercation between them but some road rage that was involved," Rubalcaba said.
NorthWest Energy was on scene almost immediately Monday morning, but according to Visser, the power never returned to Sign Pro by the time they closed for the night.
And while both businesses had to work in the dark much of the day, they aren't complaining as they know the situation could've ended up much worse.
"There's definitely a lot of damage done and business wise, it definitely takes a toll," Rubalcaba said. "But they're making progress and we'll be up and running soon. As far as everybody not being injured in the accident, everyone was fine and that was the main deal."
