By midafternoon on Saturday, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company had restored power to some 6,050 customers near the Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle and the Sunset who again lost power at 11:08 a.m., less than a week after a widespread PG&E blackout.
PG&E attributed this Saturday’s outage to the storm that swept through the city and the larger Bay Area over the last few days, on their website. We are still waiting to hear the specific cause and will post as soon as we do.
The company immediately dispatched a “troubleworker” who reached the Inner Sunset to investigate what caused the outage at 11:41 a.m. according to Megan McFarland, spokesperson for PG&E.
“We currently have three troubleworkers on site assessing the situation and are starting to switch customers to non-impacted lines,” said McFarland in an email. They are still looking into the exact cause of the outage.
The company’s website promised to restore power by 3:45 p.m today, and by 2:30 p.m. all had lights again.
The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management warned residents that the power outage is also affecting traffic signals in parts of the Sunset and that any intersections with dark signals should be treated as all-way stops, via a post on X.
Earlier this week PG&E cautioned that the incoming storms could disrupt services to many customers but the company is preparing with full-force to be ready for potential outages. In a statement on their website, they said that they are pre-positioning additional crews where storm impact is expected to be most severe.
“More than 5,500 PG&E front-line coworkers and contractors will be on storm duty, including more than 1,500 gas and electric crew personnel and nearly 3,000 available tree workers,” read the statement.
Last week, around 130,000 customers in San Francisco lost power in a widespread blackout that lasted over 48 hours in some regions. The large-scale power outage was attributed, for the most part, to a fire at the PG&E substation on Eighth and Mission.
On Dec. 22 the company announced a bill credit of $200 for residential customers and $2500 for businesses that would automatically be added to their bills for the “inconvenience and disruption caused by the event.” Customers can also pursue additional claims if they so chose.