Sonoma County Courthouse, Admin Building Lose Power After Cable Failure

SONOMA COUNTY, CA -- An underground cable failure in the east Santa Rosa area was the cause of a power outage that affected about 1,100 customers in the city Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman for PG&E said.

The cable, located at 450 Sonoma Ave., caused power to go out at 2:14 p.m. The failure affected the county courthouse, county administration building and Santa Rosa Junior College, and may have affected other customers, but many businesses and traffic lights did not lose power, according to PG&E.

The county courthouse closed at about 2:30 p.m. because of the outage and the county administrative building was without power as of about 3:30 p.m., but the power was back on by 4:15 p.m., PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said.

It's possible the rain caused the cable to fail because sometimes vaults where cables are located fill up with water, Contreras said.

Bay City News contributed to this report/Image via Shutterstock