Winds cut power for 8,200 PG&E customers
Winds ranging from 40 to 60 miles per hour tore through Humboldt County on Monday leaving thousands of customers without power. Power has been restored to all but approximately 300 customers as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the PG&E outage map.
Jonathan Garner, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Eureka, told the Times-Standard the wind will die down throughout the week.
“We had wind speeds ranging from around 40 miles per hour at the coast to 60 miles per hour across some of the exposed ridges, especially southwest Humboldt County,” Garner said. “Winds will keep on weakening during the next 24 hours and will be pretty light and variable by tomorrow.”
Reached by email on Tuesday morning, Humboldt County Public Works Director Tom Mattson said there was “nothing notable” by way of damage from fallen trees and branches.
PG&E spokesperson Deanna Conteras confirmed several ongoing and a few new outages throughout the region on Tuesday morning.
“There were a couple of small outages in Eureka (on Monday) but most of them impacted northern Mendocino and parts of Southern Humboldt,” Contreras told the Times-Standard, adding that power should be restored on Tuesday afternoon.
The outage cut off electric service to nearly 8,200 PG&E customers throughout the North Coast, Contreras said.
“Crews have found multiple sources of damage to lines feeding five transmission-level substations in Mendocino and southern Humboldt counties,” she said. “Service to thousands of customers in Fruitland,
Fort Seward, Garberville, Ettersburg, Honeydew, Miranda, Myers Flat, Petrolia, Phillipsville, Redcrest, Piercy, Redway, Weott, Westport and Whitethorn has already been restored.”
Most of the damage observed by PG&E crews was caused by trees and branches falling into power lines.
“We had to call out our vegetation management crews to remove the trees or the tree branches before making repairs to the powerlines and other equipment that may have been damaged,” Contreras said.
Never go near broken equipment, downed or lowhanging powerlines, Contreras added.
“Assume they are powerlines and that they are energized, even though they may not be, stay away and call 911 because it could be a very dangerous situation,” she said.
More information on outages near you can be found at pgealerts.alerts. pge.com/outages/map.