PG&E unable to explain Thursday outage

As of Friday afternoon, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. had not publicly explained the cause of a widespread outage Thursday night that left 31,000 customers without power in Sonora, elsewhere in Tuolumne County, and a portion of Stanislaus County.

The cessation in electricity service to more than half of Tuolumne County’s population came six weeks after outages hit 29,000 PG&E customers in Tuolumne County on March 6. PG&E also could not explain Friday what caused a fire at a transmission structure that preceded the March 6 outages, or where that transmission is located. It took three days before the utility publicly stated fire at the transmission structure caused the previous outage.

Megan Mcfarland, spokeswoman for PG&E, said on Friday it was too early to tell whether there was any connection between the March 6 outage and one that lasted more than 10 hours for some customers

Thursday night into Friday morning.

Although customers of any utility expect simple answers to questions about what causes outages when they happen and where the outages originate, PG&E could not say whether investigators have identified a point of origin for the outages, and where they are investigating.

The outages started at 7 p.m. Thursday and left 31,000 customers without power at its height, McFarland said. Power was restored to all customers by 5:33 a.m. Friday.

Mcfarland said she wasn’t sure if the outage extended to Copperopolis in Calaveras County, and she didn’t know where the outages occurred in Stanislaus County.

Thursday night’s outage hit Sonora in a pattern similar to the one on March 6: Power to storefronts along the east side of Washington Street in downtown Sonora was out, while power to those along the west side of Washington Street remained on.

“Throughout our system, different lines and different areas receive electricity through different equipment,” Mcfarland said. “So one side of a street can be fed by one set of lines, where equipment on the other side receives electricity from different equipment. This is not unique to Sonora.”

Shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday, the Sonora Police Department and the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office began receiving calls about the outage.

The Sheriff’s Office noted at least five 911 calls between 7:03 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. from people on Serrano Road in Sonora, Big Hill Road in Columbia, Yosemite Pines RV Resort on Old Highway 120 east of Groveland, Apple Colony Road in Tuolumne, and Hillhurst Circle in Groveland, all reporting they’d lost power.

At 9:31 p.m. Thursday, a Sonora police officer had to explain to a 911 caller on East Bald Mountain Road that, due to the current power outages, “it was not unreasonable for her neighbor to be using their generator.” Sonora Police Department logs for Thursday showed that call was categorized as “public peace, fight, disorderly conduct.” The officer handled that call by telephone.

“Our agency received several alarm calls and calls from concerned citizens regarding the outage,” Sonora Police Lt. Jennifer Hannula said Friday. “Our department’s generators were utilized, and our department did not have any interruption of services.”

Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Deputy Niccoli Sandelin confirmed the Sheriff’s Office had 911 calls from people asking why their power was out, asking when their power would be restored, and other complaints against neighbors running generators.

“We did not receive any emergency calls related to the outages,” Sandelin said. “I have not heard any negative feedback about the county jail and the power outage. We do have emergency generators which activate in the instance power is lost. We do not know what caused this outage or any information about past outages.”

Adventist Health Sonora announced on Friday that, due to the outage, a freezer located at an undisclosed COVID-19 vaccine provider in Tuolumne County went out, and Tuolumne County had 16 vials of Moderna that needed to be used Friday before they spoiled. Once electricity stopped running and the freezer ceased, the vaccine doses had to be used within 24 hours.

Tuolumne County Public Health staff worked to distribute the vaccines to providers able to administer the vaccines Friday afternoon, Karen O’brien, spokeswoman for Adventist Health Sonora, said. A total of 35 vials, or 350 doses, were stored in the freezer that failed due to the PG&E outages. The hospital accepted 130 of the doses and offered them to anyone age 18 and older Friday afternoon on a first-come, firstserved basis.

Adventist Health Sonora has back-up generators and had no major issues during the outages, O’brien said.

Dore Bietz, the Office of Emergency Services coordinator for Tuolumne County, said the freezer was at a local pharmacy that lost power due to a backup generator failure. The freezer did not belong to Adventist Health Sonora or Tuolumne County Public Health.

Earlier Thursday in San Francisco, before the 31,000 outages in Tuolumne and Stanislaus counties, the California Public Utilities Commission placed PG&E in the first step of an enhanced oversight and enforcement process based on the company’s alleged failure to sufficiently prioritize clearing vegetation away from its highest-risk power lines as part of its wildfire mitigation work last year.

The CPUC ordered PG&E to make corrective actions to ensure it improves its safety performance.

Thursday’s move by the CPUC was based on a proposal brought forward by the CPUC in late February, and it builds on findings in an audit report issued by the CPUC’S Wildfire Safety Division on PG&E’S enhanced vegetation management efforts.

“The Wildfire Safety Division found that, in 2020, PG&E failed to clear hazardous vegetation from power lines that posed the highest wildfire risks, based on the company’s own risk rankings,” CPUC communications staff said in an announcement. “Instead, PG&E logged the majority of its compliance work on lower-risk power lines — the opposite of expectations set out in PG&E’S Wildfire Mitigation Plan.”

PG&E must submit a corrective action plan to the CPUC, as well as progress reports every 90 days. The corrective action plan and progress reports will be public documents, and the CPUC will hold public briefings about PG&E’S progress for transparency, CPUC communications staff said.

The CPUC’S enhanced oversight and enforcement process was imposed by the CPUC as a condition of approving PG&E’S plan for exiting bankruptcy last May.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. responded Friday to being placed under further CPUC scrutiny by sharing statements including, “PG&E’S most important responsibility is the safety of our customers and the communities we serve. We take the CPUC’S vote and the feedback from the Wildfire Safety Division and others seriously, and as a result we have already implemented significant improvements to our Enhanced Vegetation Management program and will continue to do so as outlined in our 2021 Wildfire Mitigation Plan.”

In response to the CPUC’S proposal to put PG&E on enhanced oversight and enforcement in late February, the utility vowed it would promptly prepare a corrective action plan with clear timelines and commitments.

“We understand that the most important responsibility that we have as a company and as individuals is to keep our customers, communities and our workforce safe,” PG&E said in February. “That is our focus every day, we know we have more to do, and we are committed to doing it the right way.”