Second round of PG&E safety outages affecting 2,000+ customers across Northern California

Daniel Hunt
·4 min read
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Pacific Gas and Electric Co. instituted a second set of public safety power shutoffs Tuesday evening into Wednesday, severing electricity for more than 2,000 customers in six counties — some of whom were without power for a second day — amid hot, dry conditions that could lead to more wildfires.

PG&E officials said in a Wednesday morning update that it had made the move “as winds picked back up in the Sacramento Valley and foothills. Some affected customers had their power turned off on Tuesday morning but were briefly restored due to a break in the weather.

The so-called PSPS began at 11:56 p.m. in Corning and Flournoy in Tehama County, according to data provided to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services by the utility. By 8 a.m., the following areas were part of the engineered blackout affecting 2,200 customers:

  • Butte, 314 customers

  • Colusa, 25

  • Lake, 179

  • Napa, 10

  • Solano, 210

  • Sonoma, 25

  • Tehama, 1,179

  • Yolo, 230

The utility said it did not expect the number of homes and businesses under the second day of PSPS outages to grow.

PG&E said it opened several “community resource centers” in areas that lost power or were threatened by the PSPS, enabling customers to cool off in the air conditioning, get free bottled water and snacks and charge their phones. Those centers are open through 10 p.m. Wednesday, the utility said.

Those centers would be open 8 a.m.-10 p.m. at the following locations:

“For the 10,000 customers who received notices their PSPS was delayed, their power still has not been shut off,” PG&E officials said in the morning update. “PG&E expects to have a weather ‘all clear’ by noon today, at which point we will begin patrols, assess for any damage, make repairs and restore service for impacted customers. All customers impacted by this PSPS are expected to have service restored this evening.”

Extremely hot and windy weather prompted the first deliberate outage of the year Monday night into Tuesday. But by the afternoon, crews were deployed to the field to restore power to many of those customers. In its last update before the second round of outages, PG&E had reconnected roughly 1,400 homes and businesses, even while warning of another set of blackouts.

PG&E officials stressed the need to inspect lines and replace equipment as crews methodically worked the areas affected by the PSPS. Restoring power to affected customers can take 12 daylight hours or more, depending on conditions.

While forecasters expect sweltering temperatures to persist across Northern California through the weekend, PG&E meteorologists have indicated the worst of the weather — northerly winds gust between 35 and 50 mph in some locations — would subside before the Fourth of July on Thursday.

Utility blamed equipment sparking wildfires

PG&E in recent years has imposed planned power shutoffs in the face of dire wildfire weather. The utility company’s equipment has been blamed for sparking some of the worst fires in state history, including the 2018 Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, and PG&E Corp. has been found liable for billions of dollars worth of destruction.

The utility since 2017 has been blamed for starting more than 30 wildfires, blazes that destroyed more than 23,000 homes and businesses and has killed more than 100 people.

Last year, the company engineered two PSPS events out of four possible scenarios it identified, according to filings with the California Public Utilities Commission. The late August and mid-September events took roughly 5,200 customers off the grid.

Downtown Sacramento reached 106 degrees Tuesday, three degrees shy of the all-time record for the day set a year ago. Some spots, such as Redding, were 108 degrees or hotter on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Hotter temperatures were expected Wednesday during the heat wave that’s predicted to last through Sunday.

More information on the PSPS and how to get alerts is available on PG&E website.