High winds in forecast could lead to public safety power shutoff Tuesday night
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric said Sunday night that high winds forecast over parts of Northern California on Tuesday could lead to a public safety power shutoff for 39,000 customers in Lake and 15 other counties.
The company, which opened its emergency operations center on Sunday, said its meteorologists and operations professionals are monitoring a potential dry offshore windstorm forecast to start Tuesday evening.
Due to concerns about the combination of this windstorm, the drought and dry vegetation, PG&E began sending out 48-hour advance notifications to customers on Sunday in targeted areas where the power shutoff may take place to reduce the risk of wildfire from energized power lines.
PG&E said the shutoff could impact 39,000 customers in small portions of 16 counties in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the North Coast, the North Valley and the North Bay mountains.
The majority of customers — about 27,000 — are in Butte and Shasta counties, however, PG&E said it is also notifying customers who may experience safety shutoffs in portions of 14 other counties: Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Napa, Plumas, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba.
In Lake County, 2,727 customers — of those, 184 in the Medical Baseline program — are expected to be impacted if the outage takes place, PG&E said.
A PG&E map of the potential outage area shows the impacted Lake County customers would be in the Clearlake Oaks, Cobb, Lower Lake and Middletown areas.
Other counties and their numbers of customers included in the proposed outage area are:
— Butte County: 13,841 customers, 1,366 Medical Baseline customers.
— Glenn County: 17 customers, 2 Medical Baseline customers.
— Humboldt County: 643 customers, 13 Medical Baseline customers,
— Lassen County: 65 customers, 7 Medical Baseline customers.
— Mendocino County: 239 customers, 15 Medical Baseline customers.
— Napa County: 1,804 customers, 87 Medical Baseline customers.
— Plumas County: 778 customers, 27 Medical Baseline customers.
— Shasta County: 14,027 customers, 1,239 Medical Baseline customers.
— Sierra County: 1,035 customers, 30 Medical Baseline customers.
— Solano County: 71 customers, 3 Medical Baseline customers.
— Sonoma County: 106 customers, 1 Medical Baseline customer.
— Tehama County: 2,856 customers, 219 Medical Baseline customers.
— Trinity County: 426 customers, 21 Medical Baseline customers.
— Yolo County: 100 customers, 4 Medical Baseline customers.
— Yuba County: 531 customers, 49 Medical Baseline customers.
PG&E customers can look up their addresses to find out if their location is being monitored for the potential safety shutoff at www.pge.com/pspsupdates.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.