Why SMUD and PG&E are taking a while to restore power in parts of Northern California
Extended power outages have continued into Thursday for tens of thousands of customers across Northern California, after the strongest of gusts Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning caused widespread damage to power equipment for both of the region’s major utility providers.
Restoring power for the hundreds of thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers and tens of thousands of Sacramento Municipal Utility District customers has been a long and laborious process.
Even as the peak of the windstorm has passed, continuing severe weather — including snow that will fall even harder today across some of PG&E’s territory in the mountains and foothills — has slowed restoration efforts due to both the extent of damage and safety precautions that must be followed.
As of 2:30 p.m. Thursday, there were about 24,000 customers without power in PG&E’s Sacramento Division, which includes Yolo, Solano, Colusa, Sacramento, Yuba and Sutter counties.
Damage from wind and heavy rainfall, along with trees and debris blocking roads, was most severe in a few locations including Yolo County, said Megan McFarland, a PG&E spokeswoman.
Some of the major PG&E outages on Thursday included:
• Davis — 5,394 customers
• Dixon — 666 customers
• Fairfield — 2,017 customers
• West Sacramento — 3,878 customers
• Woodland — 6,871 customers
Hundreds of PG&E, contractor and mutual-aid electric and vegetation management crews were working “around the clock to restore service to customers,” McFarland said in a news release.
She also said PG&E has asked for mutual-aid support from other Western utilities, and some those crews have started to get to work. Twenty-five crews were out working with another eight crews expected to join them.
“PG&E is aware the hardship that extended outages represent and appreciates the patience of our customers,” according to Thursday’s news release.
PG&E officials said they will be contacting customers who were still without power due to storm-related outages, including automated phone calls with updated information.