Update: Thousands without power. Modesto, Turlock irrigation districts work to restore it
Modesto and Turlock irrigation district crews were busy Sunday afternoon trying to restore power to thousands of customers as high winds and wet soil combined to topple trees and bring down utility poles and lines.
“Wind is causing big problems. Currently working 8 separate calls of power lines down and/or trees here in Stanislaus Co,” California Highway Patrol Modesto area spokesman Officer Tom Olsen said in a text message at about 4:40 p.m.
“We have a mess” on Highway 132, he added. Forty-one phone-line poles are down. There’s no threat to the public, Olsen said, but 132 is closed between Wellsford and Geer/Albers roads, with no estimated time for it to reopen. Caltrans was on its way to the scene.
MID’s interactive, live map of outage reports showed several large power failures, the largest in west Modesto, affecting about 1,700 customers. It was reported just after 3 p.m., the map’s incident summary says. The affected area is south of California Avenue from the Sutter Avenue area on the east to west of South Hart Road. As of 3:50 p.m., there was no estimated time of power restoration.
North of Empire in the area of Garst and Parker roads, an outage affecting 1,300 customers was reported at 3:45 p.m.
Another failure is affecting about 900 customers north of Vintage Faire Mall. The outage was reported a few minutes before 3, and as of 3:50 p.m., there was no estimated time of power restoration.
An outage of nearly 700 customers is east of Virginia Avenue, south of Orangeburg. It was reported just before 3 p.m., and restoration is expected by 8 p.m.
About 630 customers were affected in the area of Tully and Carver roads south of Bridle Path Lane. It was reported at 3:44 p.m.
Other outages on the map are shown to affect one to 121 customers.
The MID map page, at myaccount.mid.org/customer-service/outage-report, also can be used to report a power failure. MID customers also can report an outage by calling 209-526-7337.
At 4 p.m., the TID outages page showed four incidents being worked by crews. One in the Patterson and Crows Landing area affects 1,400 customers. Another in the Turlock area affects 600. A Ceres-Modesto outage has 140 without power. And a fourth, in the Turlock area, affected an undetermined number of customers.
That page is at www.tid.org/power/outages. “A message to customers reads: Please call TID’s 24-hour service line at 883-8301 if you are without power longer than five minutes. It is recommended that, prior to calling, you cautiously locate your electrical service panel and check to see if the main circuit breaker has flipped to the ‘off’ or ‘trip’ position. If your power is not restored after you have reset the circuit breaker, call us at 883-8301.”
