LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Pacific Gas and Electric said Monday night that it’s begun notifying customers in portions of 21 counties of the potential for a midweek public safety power shutoff due to a forecast of high winds and hot, dry conditions.
The company said the shutoff, which could take place on Wednesday, would impact about 50,000 customers, including about 30 – two of them medical baseline customers – in Lake County.
Based on an outage map, the customers in Lake County would be in the south county, near Cobb and Middletown, and power would be shut off on Wednesday evening between 6 and 8 p.m.
In addition to Lake, other counties were power could be shutoff are portions of Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama and Yuba.
PG&E said 9,230 customers in Napa County and 1,781 customers in Sonoma County are estimated to be impacted.
Based on the forecast, high fire-risk conditions are expected to arrive Wednesday evening, with high winds continuing to through Thursday morning in some locations and Friday morning in other locations. PG&E said it would then inspect the lines for damage and work to have power restored to customers within 12 daylight hours.
PG&E said the highest probability areas for this public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, are the Northern Sierra Nevada foothills; the mid and higher elevations in the Sierra generally north of Yosemite; the North Bay mountains near Mt. St. Helena; small pockets in the East Bay near Mt. Diablo; the Oakland Hills east of Piedmont; the elevated terrain east of Milpitas around the Calaveras Reservoir; and portions of the Santa Cruz and Big Sur mountains.
PG&E's in-house meteorologists, as well as staff in its Wildfire Safety Operation Center and Emergency Operation Center, will continue to monitor conditions closely, and additional customer notifications will be issued as they move closer to the potential event.
The company said it began to send out notifications to customers via text, email and automated phone calls late Monday afternoon about the potential for a shutoff.
PG&E has launched a new tool at its online Safety Action Center to help customers prepare for PSPS events.
Last month, PG&E conducted two PSPS events that both impacted small numbers of customers.
A year ago, when PG&E first rolled out the PSPS events, most of Lake County’s residents were out of power for a week due to two overlapping planned outages.
Due to better weather technology and mitigation efforts such as sectionalizing devices and temporary generation, PG&E said the PSPS event that occurred from Sept. 7 to 10 affected 54 percent fewer customers than a comparable event would have in 2019.
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PG&E may shut off power midweek to 21 counties; small number of Lake County residents could be impacted
- Elizabeth Larson
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