Lights go out again to thwart fire peril

SAN FRANCISCO — Lights went out across large portions of Northern California on Wednesday, as the state’s largest utility began its second blackout in two weeks, citing the return of dangerous fire weather.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said the rolling blackouts that initially stretched from the Sierra foothills to north of the San Francisco Bay Area would ultimately affect a half-million people — or nearly 180,000 customers — in 17 counties.

The blackouts will last about 48 hours, the utility said, but its seven-day forecast shows an elevated likelihood of a shut-off across a much larger portion of Northern California for the weekend, when high winds are expected to return.

Meanwhile, Southern California Edison said it could cut power today to more than 308,000 customers in seven counties, and San Diego Gas & Electric was warning of power shutoffs to about 24,000 customers.

The utilities say they’re concerned that winds forecast to top 60 mph could throw branches and debris into power lines or topple them, sparking wildfires.

Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to more than 2 million people across the San Francisco Bay Area in rolling blackouts from Oct. 9-12, paralyzing parts of the region in what was the largest deliberate blackout to prevent wildfires in state history. Schools and universities canceled classes and many businesses were forced to close.

Pacific Gas & Electric’s new warning just two weeks later prompted feelings of frustration and resignation among some residents and business owners and renewed rushes to stock up on batteries and other emergency supplies.

Love Birds Coffee & Tea in the old Gold Rush town of Placerville lost about $6,000 in the last blackout — a huge chunk of change for a momand-pop business and a hit from which the store hasn’t yet recovered, owner Garrett Sanders said.

Sanders said he is sympathetic to the argument that the shut-offs are designed to prevent wildfires, especially since a dozen people settled in Placerville after they were burned out of the town of Paradise by a fire that killed scores of people last year.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a sharply worded letter Tuesday to Bill Johnson, the utility’s CEO, blaming the unprecedented mass shutoff earlier this month on the company’s failure to maintain and upgrade its equipment.

“I believe the unacceptable scope and duration of the previous outage — deliberately forcing 735,000 customers to endure power outages — was the direct result of decades of [Pacific Gas & Electric] prioritizing profit over public safety,” Newsom wrote, referring to the number of businesses and households affected, not the total number of people.

The utility says the shutdowns are not about money.

The only goal “is to prevent a catastrophic wildfire,” Johnson said in a Tuesday briefing.