A car crash led to a power outage for more than 3,000 Palo Alto Utilities customers early Sunday morning, according to the city's Utilities Department.

The outage impacted 3,330 customers shortly before 5 a.m. on Sept. 11, according to Utilities communications manager Catherine Elvert. The service disruption was caused by a car that crashed into a utility pole at the northbound U.S. Highway 101 off-ramp just south of Embarcadero Road.

A white 2011 BMW 535i was traveling north at a high rate of speed. For unknown reasons, the driver lost control and the BMW veered off the road and hit the power pole. The BMW came to rest on the side of the road. The driver fled the scene and the vehicle was reported stolen the following day, CHP spokesperson Officer Art Montiel said.

Most of the affected customers had power restored at around 7 a.m., except for 50 customers near Edgewood Plaza, who remained without service until 4:50 p.m., Elvert said.

A Palo Alto Utilities crew sent to the scene made emergency repairs on site, she said. As they worked, officers from the California Highway Patrol and Palo Alto's traffic control directed motorists and pedestrians to safely move through the area.

Sunday's power disruption was the fourth major outage in the city in less than a week. On Sept. 5, there were 4,500 customers who lost power around 10:30 p.m. in the city's downtown and neighboring areas due to a bad transformer and cable resulting from a heat wave. Another outage affected 1,700 customers in the Midtown, Old Palo Alto and Industrial Park neighborhoods for about 30 minutes on the evening of Sept. 6. In a statement the next day, the city said the interruption was made in error. The city was asked to cut off service by the Northern California Power Agency, but officials later learned that a NCPA dispatcher misunderstood a directive from the state's grid operator. On Wednesday morning, a squirrel that made contact with an underground line led to an outage for 4,462 customers downtown. The Utilities Department determined it was the same circuit that resulted in the Sept. 5 outage.