Power restored after SMUD says breaker blew, affecting nearly 4,000 customers in Sacramento
Nearly 4,000 homes and businesses are back on the grid after losing electricity Saturday when a breaker tripped, triggering a power outage that zapped parts of Sacramento’s core — including midtown, East Sacramento, Curtis Park and Oak Park.
A spokesperson for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District said the outage, first reported at 12:10 p.m., was fixed at a substation where crews had to repair the breaker. Power was restored just after 1 p.m., according to SMUD. At first count, the outage had affected 3,833 customers, according to SMUD’s outage information webpage.
What caused the breaker to malfunction or fail was not disclosed by SMUD officials. The utility did not say which substation was affected, but one substation at 35th and R streets fell within the outage’s immediate area, according to mapping provided by the California Energy Commission.
Sacramento Regional Transit also reported disruptions for Gold Line light rail service, which runs from downtown to Folsom. RT’s light rail trains are powered by overhead electricity lines and the California Highway Patrol reported minutes into the outage that one RT train had stopped at Alhambra Boulevard and R Street, blocking traffic.
Temperatures in the area were around 93 degrees just before 1 p.m., as the capital region was under a heat advisory until 8 p.m.
