PG&E bracing for more strong winds, new round of outages
Strong winds that roared into the Bay Area on Saturday night — fanning the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County and small grass fires — could continue through Wednesday, meaning that power may remain out for some of the more than 2 million people already affected by PG&E’s historic shutdown through at least midweek.
PG&E said Sunday that it was monitoring a “new, potentially widespread, strong and dry wind event” that may begin in Northern California on Tuesday morning and continue through Wednesday in the Bay Area and through Thursday at the lower end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County.
The company, much criticized in recent years when its equipment sparked wildfires, is aggressively shutting off power
when it foresees risky situations to avoid sparking blazes.
PG&E had expected to begin restoring power late Sunday and today to some of the estimated 960,000 homes and businesses in 38 Northern California counties affected by the shutdown, said PG&E spokesman Paul Doherty.
But the upcoming “wind event” — while smaller — could lead to another round of safety-related power shutoffs in 32 of those counties, including all nine Bay Area counties, Doherty said.
The new weather system carrying dry winds is expected to start in the northernmost part of the utility’s service area, spread down through the Sacramento Valley and into central parts of the state, including the Bay Area.
Mark Quinlan, incident commander for the current outage, said the footprint of customers potentially affected by the next event will be similar to those affected over the weekend. The shutoffs also will be rolled out in phases. He said that about 500,000 customers had been notified that they could lose power.
It also could be that some customers who lost power Saturday night and Sunday morning could remain without power through Wednesday, or they could regain their power for a short time but have it turned off again Tuesday, depending on weather conditions, Doherty said.
“This is a very dynamic situation,” he said. “There may be some crossover with some customers. We’ll make every effort to restore power to those whose power is currently out. But some customers may remain without power for the duration of the several wind conditions.”
Earlier Sunday, he said, “As of right now, we’re asking customers to be prepared (to be without power) for up to 48 hours.”
About 100,000 customers who were not part of the planned outage ultimately lost power because of strong winds that downed power lines, said Scott Strenfel, PG&E chief meteorologist. Pockets of 1,000 customers or more lost power in Walnut Creek, Oakland, Milpitas, Brentwood, Redwood City and Los Altos Hills.
He anticipated there’s likely to be greater damage to PG&E equipment this time because of the high winds, which could slow down power restoration.
“To put it into perspective, the event on Oct. 9 through Oct. 11, we found over 120 incidents (of damage). I expect our crews to find much more damage to our assets,” Strenfel said.
A red flag warning due to high wind speeds is in effect until 11 a.m. today in much of the Bay Area. Strenfel said at a news conference Sunday evening that the company’s equipment measured winds as high as 100 mph.
At the top of Mount Saint Helena, one weather station sustained winds of 72 mph, he said.
The company’s largest power shutdown up to this point began rolling out across more than 38 counties Saturday evening.
For the planned shutoffs, the power started to go out in Oakland and Berkeley hills early Sunday. Police were stationed at disabled traffic lights Sunday morning to direct traffic, and residents were stocking up on ice and water at the Lucky’s and Safeway stores in Montclair, which appeared to be powered by generators.
In the past two years, California has seen the two deadliest wildfires in state history. PG&E equipment was deemed responsible for sparking last year’s Camp Fire, which killed 86 people and devastated the town of Paradise.
Oakland Fire Department spokesman Michael Hunt said winds as high as 50 mph had been reported in North Oakland.
“We are asking anyone who comes across a down wire to consider it a live wire and keep your distance, call 911 immediately,” he said.
Across the Bay Area, residents grappled with the second major shutdown in the past few weeks, and there was a new sense of resignation to the scenario.
PG&E was blasted for poor communication during the first shutdown, but there were fewer complaints this time.
Most businesses in Montclair village were closed Sunday. A Great Place For Books bookstore, Rhythm Bikes and the Montclair Toy house remained open, using the daytime sunlight to illuminate their stores.
Employee Mike Kelleher, who lives nearby in the affected zone, said he understands how serious the fire threat is but hopes PG&E will update its infrastructure so that this won’t be the new normal for long.
“I think this is going to be our new October schedule,” he said.
Power at the 130-room Los Gatos Lodge went out at 11:15 p.m. Saturday, just as two high school reunions and a Halloween party were winding down.
General Manager Cecilio Reyes said the hotel was fortunate that the events did not cancel when they heard about the shutoff, but all reservations were canceled Sunday.
“Sunday business is pretty much lost — it’s a lot of unhappy people,” Reyes said. “We don’t trust the estimates for when power will come back — they’ve been modified time and time again — so we’re prepared for the worst.”
The utility company broke up the latest shutdown in phases.
The first and second phases started at 5 p.m. Saturday in the northern Sierra foothills and the North Bay, where the Kincade Fire continued to gain steam. This was followed at 8 p.m. by Alameda, Contra Costa, Monterey, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Stanislaus counties.
About an hour later, a fourth phase kicked off in Humboldt, north Mendocino, Siskiyou and Trinity counties.
In San Jose, officials confirmed outages began about 8:30 p.m. in the Almaden, Alum Rock, Berryessa, Evergreen and Santa Teresa neighborhoods.
A proclamation of local emergency was issued about 8:45 p.m.