Weather
54K Customers Without Power Wednesday In PG&E Service Area
In addition to 22,000 impacted by a public safety power shutoff, another 32,000 were without electricity amid high winds up to 88 mph.
BAY AREA, CA — As strong gusts blast Northern California on Wednesday, PG&E is reporting outages to 7,500 Bay Area customers due to weather issues like downed wires, on top of more than 16,000 in the region already affected by planned public safety power shutoffs.
"As forecasted, fierce winds entered PG&E's service area last night with peak wind gusts observed at 88 mph in St. Helena in Napa County," PG&E said in a release on Wednesday.
The public safety shutoffs started around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday when PG&E de-energized 1,339 customers in Sonoma and Lake counties.
After 7 p.m. Tuesday, 1,019 customers in Napa and Solano counties were also de-energized.
"There have been no impacts to polling locations or tabulation centers, with the exception of one temporary outage at a Santa Rosa polling site," PG&E Spokesperson Jason King said in an email
The outage occurred Tuesday and PG&E dispatched a generator to the site.
PG&E staged temporary generators at five polling locations in Vacaville, Fairfield, Los Gatos and Lake County, as they were within areas impacted by the shutoffs.
By 9 a.m. Wednesday, PG&E shut off power to around 22,000 customers after top-speed winds entered the utility's service area overnight. Peak wind gusts of 88 mph were observed in St. Helena in Napa County, PG&E said.
In the Bay Area, customers most impacted Wednesday by the shutoffs were in the North Bay, where 4,575 were affected in Napa County and 4,496 in Solano County, according to PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian.
The shutoffs also impacted 2,373 customers in Alameda County, 1,815 in Sonoma County, 1,709 in Santa Clara County, and 1,228 in Contra Costa County.
Another 32,000 customers were without power Wednesday morning in unplanned outages caused by the strong winds. This included some 200 in the St. Helena area and west toward the Napa County/Sonoma County line.
PG&E dispatched 1,600 crew members across its service area to inspect and repair equipment and restore power as safely and quickly as possible. The utility aims to have most service restored by Thursday.
In the meantime, PG&E opened 29 Community Resource Centers throughout the 17 affected counties. Customers can charge their cell phones and other devices and can contact 211 for local support, including locating transportation assistance, hotel support and food options during power outages.
The centers will remain open through Thursday to support customers without power. Since Tuesday, more than 900 customers have visited centers in their respective areas.
Wednesday afternoon, PG&E started to issue weather "all-clears" in some of the areas affected by the shutoff event, specifically in Stanislaus and Santa Cruz counties and in portions of Santa Clara and Alameda counties.
After an all-clear is issued, customers receive an automated update from PG&E about their estimated restoration time. Crews begin patrols in that area, inspecting equipment and making repairs where needed before restoration can begin.
Additional all-clears were expected later Wednesday, and PG&E expected to make the remaining all-clears Thursday morning.
"Barring findings of significant damage to assets or inability to access assets, all PSPS-related restorations are expected to be complete by Thursday evening," PG&E said.
PG&E added that it contacted essentially all Medical Baseline and self-identified vulnerable customers by phone, text, email, or in-person visits to alert them about the PSPS and see if they needed further assistance.
Fire danger was still significant in large portions of the PG&E service area, as the National Weather Service called for widespread Red Flag Warnings through 7 a.m. Thursday in the interior Bay Area and Central Coast, San Francisco and the Peninsula and Santa Cruz region.
The National Weather Service announced shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday that it canceled portions of the warning. The pink areas below are the active areas; the white areas show where the red flag warning was canceled.
— Bay City News Service contributed to this report.
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