Hospitals, schools, services make adjustments

Schools, hospitals and other institutions are bracing for blackouts as PG&E prepares to cut power to as many as 800,000 customers in Northern and Central California. With dry conditions and a forecast that calls for high winds, the utility is trying to prevent its equipment from sparking another destructive wildfire.

Here’s a status update on what regional school districts, hospitals and other services and organizations in the potential blackout zone are open.

HOSPITALS

Bay Area hospital officials said they were preparing for potential outages, including readying backup generators, but most said their buildings were outside the current blackout zone.

John Muir Health: The East Bay network of hospitals and medical centers was preparing to move medications that need refrigeration from clinics in Orinda, Lafayette and San Ramon to locations where power will be maintained. Those medications include flu, shingles, measles, mumps and rubella vaccines and osteoarthritis medicine.

Staffers are reaching out to patients who have appointments scheduled over the next several days to inform them about the potential outage, and appointments haven’t yet been canceled.

Kaiser: All Kaiser hospitals have emergency generators that can support critical hospital systems during a power outage. Power outages may affect outpatient offices and require rescheduling some services, and Kaiser will communicate with affected patients by phone and text message. It is also reaching out to patients who use electricitypowered medical devices at home to explain how to protect their health during an outage.

Sutter Health: Sutter officials said they were in touch with PG&E about the potential shutoffs and is adopting preparedness protocols to reduce the impacts but did not elaborate on those preparations. If the power goes out, patients should contact their medical team or office directly with any questions, said Sutter spokeswoman Amy Thoma Tan. Sutter hospitals in Amador County, Auburn, Santa Rosa and Lakeport may be affected.

Dignity Health: Dignity, which operates hospitals in San Francisco and Redwood City, said it will run on generator power in the event of a shut-off and does not anticipate any disruption in operations. St. Joseph Health: St. Joseph’s urgent care clinics in Napa and Windsor are without power and closed as of early Wednesday afternoon, but its North Bay hospitals —Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Petaluma Valley Hospital and Queen of the Valley — are not expected to lose power and hospital operations continue to function normally, a spokeswoman said.

ZOOS

Oakland Zoo: The Oakland Zoo closed to the public Wednesday morning ahead of the anticipated shut-off. The animals are being cared for by staff.

San Francisco Zoo: The San Francisco Zoo did not expect to be affected by any outages, but officials there were prepared to enact emergency procedures as they would for an earthquake or other situation, a spokeswoman said.

SCHOOLS

K-12 Districts: A complete list of K-12 school districts’ plans can be found at www.sfchronicle.com/pgeshutoffs.

Universities: UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz canceled classes Wednesday. Mills College and Holy Names University, both in Oakland, canceled classes Wednesday and Thursday.

AIRPORTS

San Francisco International Airport officials said the outages were not affecting services. San Jose International Airport officials don’t expect to see an impact either but are making preparations and communicating with airlines in case the situation changes. Oakland spokesman Robert Bernardo said in an email “the Port, which owns and operates Oakland International Airport, is closely monitoring PG&E’s potential planned power outages. Specifically at Oakland International Airport, we have extensive stand-by power to safely and securely run passenger operations.”

RESEARCH FACILITIES

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory closed Wednesday in anticipation of a power outage. Lab officials said it was unclear when it would reopen, but it will remain closed until PG&E restores power and operations can be safely restarted.