Power was slowly returning to the Richmond District on Sunday, though some 13,000 customers were still without electricity in the late afternoon after the after the citywide blackout that hit approximately a third of San Francisco on Saturday.
Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Connie Chan said that power was expected to return fully by 2 p.m. on Monday.
“If you do not have power now, you should not expect to get power until then, so plan for it,” Lurie said.
They urged Richmond residents to go to a community resource center at 251 18th Ave. or call 211 for a free hotel stay, courtesy of PG&E.
As of 4:56 p.m., 12,714 customers, representing 3.1 percent of the city, were still without electricity.
That was down from the early afternoon, when 15,113 homes and businesses were still without electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. wrote on Sunday morning that it was “unable to provide a precise timeframe for full restoration,” but said some 3,000 were back online since Sunday morning.
Still, power is out across the Richmond District, from Arguello Boulevard to 48th Avenue, according to PG&E’s outage map. Pockets of the Sunset and Civic Center are also without electricity, and there are scattered outages across the city.
Golden Gate Park the the Presidio were also affected.
Earlier on Sunday, about 21,000 customers were still affected.
The outage affected about 125,000 homes and businesses at its peak and appeared to stem, in part, from a Saturday afternoon fire at a South of Market substation. The fire department responded to that one-alarm blaze a little after 2 p.m., and PG&E was pulling in more workers to tackle the damage.
“The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive, and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” the utility wrote Sunday morning. “We have mobilized additional engineers and electricians.”
But outages were also reported for hours on Saturday before that substation conflagration.
PG&E recommended customers keep freezers and refrigerators closed, turn off and unplug appliances, and keep a flashlight easily accessible.
BART service was restored after Saturday’s station closures. Several Muni lines — the K-Ingleside, L-Taraval, M-Ocean, N-Judah, and J-Church — were still affected as of Sunday morning, the transit agency wrote.
BART said customers affected by those closures could use a BART train “at no charge.”
Waymo had to suspend its services across San Francisco on Saturday after videos and images showed dozens of its driverless cars stuck at intersections, apparently confused by the lack of traffic lights and causing massive jams. Its cars were back in service as of Sunday afternoon.
Mayor Daniel Lurie said on Sunday he would give updates on “what resources we are going to be sending out to the Richmond District,” and that he was “pushing PG&E hard on a timeline for full restoration.”
He filmed himself in the neighborhood, standing in a fine rain a little after noon, and urged small businesses affected by the blackout to go to a website to file a claim with PG&E.
“Just look out for each other,” he said. “If you have a neighbor, if you have a friend living out there that could use a check-in, please check in on them. And let’s continue to take care of ourselves, take care of each other.”
They like to point at the substation fire in the afternoon, but it is worth mentioning how blackouts started cascading in the morning. Major PG&E fail, all they know is raking it in while gaslighting the public. A couple more things to take a look at as well – widespread outage of mobile phone service. Wasn’t that supposed to be on backup power? Apparently not. And old fashioned AM/FM radio was completely out of the picture, they kept going as if nothing had happened.
This is what really has me intrigued. Areas of the Inner Sunset lost power before 10AM, and then the Richmond, but the fire at the Mission St substation wasn’t ‘reported’ until after two. I suspect the two are related or causal. But also I wonder if a report will be generated let alone be made public once the investigation is complete.
I was at Van Ness station waiting for an outbound train around 1:15/1:30 when most of the lights went out, but trains were still running in both directions. There were announcements that trains would not be stopping at Montgomery because of a police action.
I might speculate that if one part of the network has a failure, then that increases the load on the other parts of the network, thereby increasing the risk of an overload elsewhere.
I guess that’s why maintenance is usually referred to as preventative…