Fearful of wildfires, utility cuts power

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. has deliberately left customers in the dark for the first time as a precaution to prevent wildfires from breaking out.

Almost 60,000 customers in six counties across the Sierra Nevada foothills and Northern California wine country were blacked out Sunday during a windstorm, according to Melissa Subbotin, a company spokesman. Service was expected be restored beginning late Monday and continuing into today.

The utility owner could be on the hook for as much as $17.3 billion in liabilities if its equipment is linked to 2017’s blazes, JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated in August. Investigators have already said that PG&E violated state laws in 11 of last year’s fires. The company took a $2.5 billion pretax charge in the second quarter that was tied to some of those blazes. The state still hasn’t released its report on the Tubbs fire, the deadliest one last year.

PG&E plans to inspect each affected power line for wind damage before restarting it. Inspection crews were deployed early Monday morning, Subbotin said. The region was buffeted with wind gusts over 50 miles per hour Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric utility has shut down electrical lines during windstorms for years, but PG&E had long resisted taking that step. San Diego Gas & Electric cut electricity to 360 customers Monday morning after warning about 4,000 customer scattered across San Diego County’s mountainous backcountry that they could lose power.