Pacific Gas & Electric reported earlier today that service had been restored to 2,400 customers who lost power after a transformer caught fire at 3:50 a.m. at 47 Duboce Ave.
While work continues, Duboce continues to be closed between Mission and Valencia streets. The street should reopen to cars by late afternoon.
Traffic is also slow on 15th Street because streetlights aren’t functioning properly.
Twenty-five customers are still getting power from a generator, said Joe Molica, a PG&E spokesman.
At B&K Electrical Supply, co-owner Donald Wong said that he was relieved that a generator was put in place because the outage has had a big impact on business. The store, which usually opens at 7 a.m., couldn’t sell anything until after 11 a.m.
“Contractors come in early and get things here,” he said.
The transformer had been replaced by PG&E two weeks ago, Molica said. It’s still not clear what caused the fire this morning, he said.
Kevin Wetzler, who lives on Guerrero and Duboce, noticed the power was out in his apartment when he looked at his alarm clock at about 6 a.m.
“The light came on, but it was a dim glow,” he said.
I could see this out my window. There was a loud explosion and flash at 3:50, followed by a smaller one a few minutes later. Small bits of flaming debris were burning on Duboce. Fire dept responded within 15 minutes.
There was another loud explosion about a half hour after that.
Lights in my building were flickering at first, then power was lost completely.