Nearly a dozen power poles toppled on Homestead Road in Santa Clara

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - In Santa Clara, the strong winds left thousands of customers without power as trees and power lines were toppled. The fire department says nearly a dozen power poles went down on Homestead Road Tuesday afternoon. 

"It was just quick. The winds were super strong, of course. I didn’t expect so many poles to be broken here," said Gil, who lives in Santa Clara.   

Just before 3 p.m., Santa Clara police asked businesses and residents to shelter-in-place until further notice due to downed power lines. 

Baldwyn Chieh says he works for a large tech company in Cupertino, and he ended his day a bit early when the building lost some of its power.   

"It’s really interesting because actually all the lights went off, then the lights came on. About half of them. We had no electricity in our outlets so our computers, we had to run on battery. But the doors still worked. The garage door could still open to let cars out," Chieh said.    

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Police and fire crews say they worked quickly to reroute traffic on Homestead between Kiely Boulevard and Lawrence Expressway as Silicon Valley Power worked to restore power.

About five miles down the road in Sunnyvale, a 50-foot tree also toppled on to the main building of West Valley Elementary School. No one was hurt and neighbors say the high winds put a temporary stop to everything.   

"Yeah, so then I saw this tree and then everyone’s fence is down. The traffic on 85 over there is just empty so it’s a little bit crazy," said Adam Lips of Sunnyvale.