The Climate Prediction Center’s outlook for Oct. 21 to 25, 2021, shows above-normal precipitation for areas of Northern California including Lake County. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service is forecasting chances of rain over the weekend and into next week.
The Climate Prediction Center’s precipitation outlook for Oct. 21 to 25, which was issued on Friday, calls for above-normal precipitation for areas of Northern California that include Lake County.
The center’s forecast estimates next week’s rainfall could be 90 to 100% above normal.
The National Weather Service’s Eureka office said the below-normal precipitation for the first half of October could be made up for in the last two weeks of the month if the Climate Prediction Center’s predictions hold true.
The Lake County forecast calls for chances of rain Sunday and into Sunday night, totaling a fifth of an inch.
Conditions are expected to clear on Monday and Tuesday, with rain likely beginning on Wednesday and continuing through Friday, the forecast said.
On Saturday, temperatures are expected to range from the high 70s to low 80s before dropping into the 60s on Sunday, when rain is expected.
Through Friday, daytime temperatures are expected to range from the high 50s and 60s along the Northshore to the 70s in the south county. Nighttime conditions will be in the high 30s to the high 40s.
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Nickelina Rose Williams, 38, of Fallon, Nevada, was arrested on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021, for arson. Lake County Jail photo. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — On Wednesday the California Highway Patrol arrested a Nevada woman who is believed to have set a fire along Highway 29 near Kelseyville.
The CHP’s Clear Lake Area office said it took Nickelina Rose Williams, 38, of Fallon into custody on Wednesday afternoon.
Williams is the latest in a growing list of women over the past two years to be arrested in Lake County for arson.
At 3:06 p.m. Wednesday, the CHP said officers Brian Hanson and Jacob Hoberg were dispatched to a call of a possible wildland fire on Highway 29 near Bottle Rock Road.
Radio traffic indicated there were multiple callers reporting the roadside fire, which was spreading into a field.
When Hanson and Hoberg arrived in the area, the CHP said the officers located a group of motorists who had stopped and were attempting to extinguish a 10-foot by 10-foot fire just off Highway 29’s south shoulder.
The CHP said Officer Hoberg contacted Nickelina Williams, who was walking southbound on Highway 29 near the fire’s ignition point.
Williams denied any knowledge about the fire, however, the CHP said the investigation determined that Williams possessed a lighter and ignition materials matching materials found at the site of the fire ignition point.
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Arson Investigator Joe Baldwin also responded and assisted officers at the scene, the CHP said.
Officer Hanson placed Williams under arrest on suspicion of arson less than an hour after the incident was reported. She was later booked at the Lake County Jail, according to her booking sheet.
Williams remained in custody early Friday, with two felony charges of arson and two misdemeanor arrest warrants listed on her booking sheet. She is being held on no bail for the arson counts.
Booking records show that Williams, whose occupation is listed as “fast food,” is due to be arraigned in Lake County Superior Court on Friday.
The CHP said the case remains under investigation. Any witnesses to the incident are asked to call the Clear Lake CHP Office at 707-279-0103.
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Dylan Flanagan. Courtesy photo. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The search for a man who went missing during a Sunday kayaking trip ended on Thursday, when his body was discovered on the Clear Lake shoreline.
The body of 28-year-old Dylan Rockne Flanagan of San Francisco was found Thursday morning, said Lt. Corey Paulich of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Paulich said a Cal Fire crew traveling through the area found Flanagan’s body at 10:40 a.m. on the shoreline in the area of Olson Road in Clearlake Oaks.
Flanagan’s death is the fifth on Clear Lake this year, the sheriff’s office reported. Clearlake Oaks has been the site of the majority of those deaths; in early June, there were three deaths in just one weekend, all offshore of Clearlake Oaks.
Flanagan, who had been staying in a vacation rental in the area of Olson Road and East Highway 20 to celebrate his 28th birthday and a job promotion, had gone kayaking Sunday afternoon but didn’t return, as Lake County News has reported.
The conditions at the time were reported to be windy, with high waves on Clear Lake. Flanagan was reportedly not wearing a life jacket.
What followed was a four-day-long search effort led by the Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol, with the assistance of Flanagan’s family, friends and co-workers.
During the course of those search efforts, items believed to have been his — the kayak, a paddle, a flip-flop, a water bottle and a hydration backpack — were located throughout the search area, which had included Widgeon Bay to Rattlesnake Island and Clark’s Island.
The Marine Patrol had been running a grid pattern search and also had used side scan sonar.
Paulich said Flanagan’s autopsy is scheduled for next week.
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.
Damage at Westside Community Park in Lakeport, California, required a closure on Thursday, October 14, and Friday, October 15, 2021, for repairs. Photo courtesy of the city of Lakeport. LAKEPORT, Calif. — The city of Lakeport closed Westside Community Park on Thursday and Friday in order to address damage done by feral pigs and to work on a plan to deal with the animals.
Officials reported that over the past several weeks, large packs of feral pigs have seriously damaged the soccer fields at the park on multiple occasions.
Lakeport Public Works Department staff spent several hours on Thursday repairing the most recent damage.
City officials said the destruction of the soccer fields and other areas of Westside Community Park has resulted in significant repair costs.
In response, the city of Lakeport is working with local law enforcement and state and federal wildlife management agencies to develop and implement a plan to haze and trap the feral pigs to eliminate this ongoing problem.
The operation began on Thursday, necessitating a closure of the park.
The park also was closed on Friday evening, and slated to reopen at 6 a.m. Saturday, the city said.
Lakeport Police Officer Katie Hutchins. Courtesy photo. LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lakeport Police Department is welcoming another new officer to its ranks.
The agency introduced Officer Katie Hutchins as its newest officer on Thursday.
Hutchins is a local Lake County resident and a graduate of Middletown High School, Lakeport Police reported.
She graduated from the Santa Rosa Junior College Public Safety Training Center Police Academy and went on to work as an officer for the Calistoga Police Department before being hired by the Lakeport Police Department.
Hutchins’ hire makes her the fourth female officer now working for the department. That’s the most in its history.
In addition to a growing number of female officers, the department is becoming more diverse in other ways, adding more Spanish-speaking officers and announcing last week the hire of officer trainee, Nicholas Steward, who is black.
“We are excited to have Katie on our team serving the Lakeport community,” the department said in a Thursday statement.
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Dylan Flanagan. Courtesy photo. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Four days after he was last seen kayaking on Clear Lake, a missing man remains the focus of an intense search around the Clearlake Oaks area, with items that are believed to have belonged to him being found near where he was last seen.
A kayak, its paddle, a shoe and a life jacket are all clues that have been discovered by the Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol, along with family and friends of 28-year-old Dylan Rockne Flanagan, who have been looking for him since he failed to return from a kayaking trip on Sunday evening.
Flanagan, a Southern California native who has been working in the San Francisco area, had been staying at a vacation rental near East State Highway 20 and Olson Road in Clearlake Oaks, said Lt. Rich Ward of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Ward said Flanagan was vacationing in Lake County to celebrate his 28th birthday and a promotion at his job.
For the past two years, Flanagan had been working at the San Francisco-based AppsFlyer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Late Sunday afternoon, Flanagan headed out on Clear Lake, planning to paddle to Rattlesnake Island in what Ward described as a small but standard 8- to 9-foot kayak.
Flanagan’s girlfriend told the sheriff’s office that Flanagan was last seen at approximately 4:45 p.m. Sunday while out in the kayak. Ward said the information they’ve received so far is that he was not wearing a life jacket.
Ward said Flanagan’s girlfriend had called him on his cellphone shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday, at which point he said he was on the kayak and was OK. But her attempts to contact him afterward resulted in the calls going to voicemail.
Winds were high that day, and when the sheriff’s Marine Patrol began searching that night, they ran into similarly rough conditions, Ward said.
On Sunday night, Marine Patrol searched the immediate area of where Flanagan was last seen, and did a visual search of the shoreline along Highway 20 and the Rattlesnake Island area, Ward said.
But Ward said the rough weather and high winds led to Marine Patrol stopping their search efforts until Monday morning after a Marine Patrol boat began taking in water after 11 p.m.
Just after 9:30 a.m. Monday, Marine Patrol units located a dark green kayak that they believed to be the one Flanagan had used in the area of Widgeon Bay. Ward said there was no evidence of the boat being damaged.
Flanagan’s friends, family and co-workers have been important partners in the search. Ward said they’ve been scouring the area, and his employer hired a private helicopter to help in the search effort.
Ward said seven or eight members of that group went over to Rattlesnake Island and searched it for Flanagan, but didn’t find him.
They did, however, find a kayak paddle they believe he used on the island’s north end on Tuesday, Ward said.
Other clues Ward said they’ve found include a flip-flop, a water bottle and a hydration backpack.
Although initial statements indicated Flanagan wasn’t wearing a life jacket, Ward said a life jacket was found at the entrance of the Keys. He added that such equipment flies out of boats every day on the lake, so its discovery may not be significant in the search for Flanagan.
Because they don’t know where Flanagan might have gone into the water, Ward said the Marine Patrol is running a grid search with three boats from Widgeon Bay to Clark’s Island. Side scan sonar also has been used across two-thirds of that area but so far it hasn’t located him.
Ward said it’s like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.
At the same time, Ward said searchers have continued to encounter challenging conditions, from Clear Lake’s low water levels — the lowest in four decades — to shifting winds.
Based on his knowledge of the lake, Ward surmised that Flanagan’s kayak began taking on water in the rough conditions and he went into the lake between Widgeon Bay and Rattlesnake Island.
That night there were whitecaps due to the winds which could have capsized the boat. At the same time, Ward said Flanagan could have been disoriented as to his location.
“You could be an Olympic swimmer and not make it to shore if you knew where shore was,” said Ward, adding that many people don’t realize the magnitude of the waves on Clear Lake.
The concern now is that the search has moved from rescue to recovery.
Ward said he spoke with Flanagan’s father, who is remaining hopeful, but also realizing that the search is shifting to a recovery operation.
Nonetheless, Ward said, the family indicated its members intend to continue searching for Flanagan for the next few days and will remain in Lake County through the week.
Ward said the sheriff’s office is maintaining its full staff of marine units to continue searching as long as the weather permits.
Flanagan, who is 6 feet, 1 inch tall, was last seen wearing a navy-colored Hawaiian shirt, straw hat and pink shorts.
The sheriff’s office asks that anyone with information about Flanagan contact the Central Dispatch nonemergency line at 707-263-2690.
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.
Hubble took pictures of the oldest galaxies it could – seen here – but the James Webb Space Telescope can go back much farther in time. NASA
Some have called NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope the “telescope that ate astronomy.” It is the most powerful space telescope ever built and a complex piece of mechanical origami that has pushed the limits of human engineering. On Dec. 18, 2021, after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, the telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit and usher in the next era of astronomy.
I’m an astronomer with a specialty in observational cosmology – I’ve been studying distant galaxies for 30 years. Some of the biggest unanswered questions about the universe relate to its early years just after the Big Bang. When did the first stars and galaxies form? Which came first, and why? I am incredibly excited that astronomers may soon uncover the story of how galaxies started because James Webb was built specifically to answer these very questions.
The Universe went through a period of time known as the Dark Ages before stars or galaxies emitted any light.Space Telescope Institute
The ‘Dark Ages’ of the universe
Excellent evidence shows that the universe started with an event called the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, which left it in an ultra-hot, ultra-dense state. The universe immediately began expanding after the Big Bang, cooling as it did so. One second after the Big Bang, the universe was a hundred trillion miles across with an average temperature of an incredible 18 billion F (10 billion C). Around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was 10 million light years across and the temperature had cooled to 5,500 F (3,000 C). If anyone had been there to see it at this point, the universe would have been glowing dull red like a giant heat lamp.
Throughout this time, space was filled with a smooth soup of high energy particles, radiation, hydrogen and helium. There was no structure. As the expanding universe became bigger and colder, the soup thinned out and everything faded to black. This was the start of what astronomers call the Dark Ages of the universe.
The soup of the Dark Ages was not perfectly uniform and due to gravity, tiny areas of gas began to clump together and become more dense. The smooth universe became lumpy and these small clumps of denser gas were seeds for the eventual formation of stars, galaxies and everything else in the universe.
Although there was nothing to see, the Dark Ages were an important phase in the evolution of the universe.
The Dark Ages ended when gravity formed the first stars and galaxies that eventually began to emit the first light. Although astronomers don’t know when first light happened, the best guess is that it was several hundred million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers also don’t know whether stars or galaxies formed first.
Current theories based on how gravity forms structure in a universe dominated by dark matter suggest that small objects – like stars and star clusters – likely formed first and then later grew into dwarf galaxies and then larger galaxies like the Milky Way. These first stars in the universe were extreme objects compared to stars of today. They were a million times brighter but they lived very short lives. They burned hot and bright and when they died, they left behind black holes up to a hundred times the Sun’s mass, which might have acted as the seeds for galaxy formation.
Astronomers would love to study this fascinating and important era of the universe, but detecting first light is incredibly challenging. Compared to massive, bright galaxies of today, the first objects were very small and due to the constant expansion of the universe, they’re now tens of billions of light years away from Earth. Also, the earliest stars were surrounded by gas left over from their formation and this gas acted like fog that absorbed most of the light. It took several hundred million years for radiation to blast away the fog. This early light is very faint by the time it gets to Earth.
But this is not the only challenge.
As the universe expands, it continuously stretches the wavelength of light traveling through it. This is called redshift because it shifts light of shorter wavelengths – like blue or white light – to longer wavelengths like red or infrared light. Though not a perfect analogy, it is similar to how when a car drives past you, the pitch of any sounds it is making drops noticeably.
Similar to how a pitch of a sound drops if the source is moving away from you, the wavelength of light stretches due to the expansion of the universe.
By the time light emitted by an early star or galaxy 13 billion years ago reaches any telescope on Earth, it has been stretched by a factor of 10 by the expansion of the universe. It arrives as infrared light, meaning it has a wavelength longer than that of red light. To see first light, you have to be looking for infrared light.
[The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.Weekly on Wednesdays.]
Telescope as a time machine
Enter the James Webb Space Telescope.
Telescopes are like time machines. If an object is 10,000 light-years away, that means the light takes 10,000 years to reach Earth. So the further out in space astronomers look, the further back in time we are looking.
The James Webb Space Telescope was specifically designed to detect the oldest galaxies in the universe.NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY-SA
The strategy will be to stare deeply at one patch of sky for a long time, collecting as much light and information from the most distant and oldest galaxies as possible. With this data, it may be possible to answer when and how the Dark Ages ended, but there are many other important discoveries to be made. For example, unraveling this story may also help explain the nature of dark matter, the mysterious form of matter that makes up about 80% of the mass of the universe.
James Webb is the most technically difficult mission NASA has ever attempted. But I think the scientific questions it may help answer will be worth every ounce of effort. I and other astronomers are waiting excitedly for the data to start coming back sometime in 2022.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has two new dogs joining its adoptable canines this week.
The City of Clearlake Animal Association also is seeking fosters for the animals waiting to be adopted.
Another way to help is through donations. A wish list has been posted at Amazon and on Chewy. For those who wish to shop local and drop off items, call 707-273-9440 to schedule a delivery or donate at the association’s Facebook page.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions and schedule a visit to the shelter.
Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
The newest dogs are listed at the top of the following list.
“Charles.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Charles’
“Charles” is a male American pit bull terrier with a short black coat.
He is dog No. 5190.
“Luscious.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Luscious’
“Luscious” is a male Weimaraner with a short gray coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 5201.
“Andy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Andy’
“Andy” is a male pit bull terrier mix with a short gray and white coat.
He is dog No. 5150.
“Bear.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Bear’
“Bear” is a male American Staffordshire terrier mix with a short brown coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 3476.
“Bella.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Bella’
“Bella” is a female pit bull mix with a short brindle coat.
She is dog No. 5080.
“Edgar.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Edgar’
“Edgar” is a male American Staffordshire terrier mix with a short black and cream coat.
He is dog No. 5189.
“Mitzy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Mitzy’
“Mitzy” is a female shepherd mix with a medium-length black and white coat.
She is dog No. 4648.
“Sassy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Sassy’
“Sassy” is a female American bully mix with a short black coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 4602.
“Tanisha.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Tanisha’
“Tanisha” is a female shepherd mix with a short orange and white coat.
She is dog No. 4647.
“Terry.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Terry’
“Terry” is a male Dutch shepherd mix with a smooth brindle coat.
He is dog No. 4880.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A Clearlake Oaks woman pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges that she shot her boyfriend to death in early July, with a judge setting her preliminary hearing for next month.
Tammy Sue Grogan-Robinson, 57, appeared in Lake County Superior Court before Judge J. David Markham via Zoom from the Lake County Jail on Wednesday morning.
Grogan-Robinson is charged with killing 56-year-old Charles Vernon McClelland of Rohnert Park.
Deputies found the body of McClelland, Grogan-Robinson’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, in the Clearlake Oaks residence where she was living on the morning of July 7.
The discovery of McClelland’s body followed Grogan-Robinson going to the hospital to claim she had been sexually assaulted.
An autopsy would later determine that McClelland had been shot multiple times. The District Attorney’s Office said in its charging document that Grogan-Robinson used a handgun in the killing.
Investigators concluded the shooting was unjustified and premeditated, pointing to Grogan-Robinson sending texts to a friend the night before the killing, stating her intention to shoot McClelland.
She was arrested on Aug. 18 in Missouri, where she has family. Authorities extradited her back to Lake County, where she was booked into the jail on Sept. 11.
Concerns about public safety and Grogan-Robinson being a flight risk led Judge Markham to order she be held without bail at a Sept. 28 hearing.
During the brief Wednesday court appearance, attorney Mitch Hauptman — acting on Grogan-Robinson’s behalf — entered not guilty pleas to murder and assault with a firearm, and denied each of the special allegations, which include intentionally discharging a firearm causing death, personal use of a firearm and inflicting great bodily injury.
At Hauptman’s urging, Grogan-Robinson agreed to a time waiver that would not require her preliminary hearing to be held within 30 days of the plea entry.
Instead, the preliminary hearing has been set for 8:15 a.m. Nov. 17, in a department that will be assigned at a Nov. 12 hearing.
Also on Nov. 17, Hauptman is again asking that Grogan-Robinson’s bail be reviewed.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Every 10 years, with the arrival of U.S. Census numbers, boundaries for federal, state and local jurisdictions undergo required adjustments based on population changes.
That work is going on right now with the California Citizens Redistricting Commission on the state level, which is responsible for the congressional, State Senate, State Assembly and State Board of Equalization district lines.
Community college districts also must draw new boundaries for their trustee districts.
At the county level, the Board of Supervisors is now engaged in redrawing the district boundaries for its five districts.
The board is due to have four meetings on the redistricting process, and has so far held two, one during its regular meeting on Aug. 31 and a special, stand-alone meeting on Saturday, Oct. 2. The video for the second meeting is posted on this page.
Two more meetings are planned for Nov. 2 and 30.
The county’s consultant, Margaret Long, facilitated the Oct. 2 meeting, which was focused on communities of interest.
The California Constitution defines a community of interest as “a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation. Examples of such shared interests are those common to an urban area, a rural area, an industrial area, or an agricultural area, and those common to areas in which the people share similar living standards, use the same transportation facilities, have similar work opportunities, or have access to the same media of communication relevant to the election process. Communities of interest shall not include relationships with political parties, incumbents, or political candidates.”
Long said at that time that the county was still waiting to get all of the final population information, primarily adjustments to the prison population, which the state is now requiring be attributed to the last county of residence.
She reviewed communities of interest in Lake County, and gave examples including tribal lands, the community of Buckingham, the Rivieras in Kelseyville, and certain apartment complexes with similar characteristics.
The census data was delivered by Sept. 30. From there, the timeline includes maps beginning to be published on Oct. 22, the projected adjustment due to prisoners in California on Oct. 30, Lake County’s final map to be ready for adoption on Nov. 30, ahead of the Dec. 15 map adoption deadline.
Long encouraged people to submit input, with community input a key activity for October.
It was reported that, as of that meeting, the county had received no emailed input on the redistricting.
Registrar of Voters Maria Valadez noted during the meeting that one of the toughest issues the county faced 10 years ago was keeping communities of interest together as much as possible.
She said districts 3 and 4 had to gain and lose the most residents during the last redistricting process.
That’s because Valadez said it has to be one person, one vote.
Carolyn Walker, who works with Long’s firm, reported the current supervisorial district population counts:
• District 1 — 13,294; • District 2 — 14,311; • District 3 — 13,905; • District 4 — 13,821; • District 5 — 12,708.
With Lake County’s current population divided five ways, each district should have 13,633 residents, officials said.
Long said the goal is to get those district population counts as even as possible. While the law requires getting the districts within 10% of that even number, she said a good goal is within 3 to 4%.
How to participate in redrawing the lines
Community members can draw maps to demonstration communities of interest with an online GIS tool here.
Instructions are provided when the map is launched, and Help is available using the “question mark” icon at the upper right.
To draw boundaries of a community of interest using the GIS map:
• Zoom into the area of Lake County where your community of interest is located (using a computer mouse, fingers on a touchscreen device and/or the “+” and “-” buttons in the upper left of the screen).
• Use the “Draw” function (paintbrush and artist’s palette icon at the upper right) to define boundaries.
• Once boundaries are drawn, select the printer icon at the upper right of the screen. This will launch a menu on the right side of the screen to create a PDF file that can then be saved and emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or printed and delivered in person or by mail to the County Administrative Office, ATTN: Redistricting 2021, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport, CA 95453.
Residents also can use the GIS tool to locate the area of their community of interest and print their map, and then draw the boundaries on with an ink pen, for example, and scan and email or mail their map to the above address.
The next meetings in the redistricting process will take place at 6 p.m. Nov. 2, at which time draft maps will be presented. The Zoom link is here; the pass code is 310792.
At the final meeting, to be held at 9 a.m. Nov. 30, the board will consider adopting the final map for the newly drawn districts. The Zoom link is here: pass code is 597249.
More information about Lake County’s redistricting process, in both English and Spanish, is available here.
General feedback or questions also can be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Thursday it canceled a planned public safety power shut-off for 10 Northern California counties due to changes in the weather forecast.
The shut-off, or PSPS, had been set to start early Thursday and was expected to impact less than 100 Lake County customers, just days after another PSPS had cut power to more than 4,000 Lake County customers.
However, PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said later on Thursday that the company canceled the shut-off in the northern portion of its service area as offshore winds trend weaker.
Originally, as many as 29,000 customers across Northern California had been included in early notifications.
Contreras said the scope decreased to about 5,500 customers in 10 counties — Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Napa, Shasta, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama and Yolo — before it ultimately was canceled.
However, she said gusty winds in the company’s southern service area could potentially prompt a PSPS impacting about 670 Kern County customers in Kern County. Those customers were notified that a potential shut-off could begin early Friday.
She said customers no longer being considered for a PSPS should be aware that unexpected power outages are still possible for other reasons, including debris or wildlife coming into contact with power lines, Contreras said.
“In those cases, PG&E will work safely to restore power as quickly as possible once we determine the system is safe to re-energize, she added.
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.
A map of areas in Lake County, California, to be impacted in a public safety power shut-off on Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021. Map courtesy of Pacific Gas and Electric. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric said Wednesday night that it has scaled back the size of its planned public safety power shut-off scheduled for early Thursday morning.
The company — which had conducted a public safety power shut-off, or PSPS, on Monday and Tuesday due to high winds — said another shut-off also was being triggered by weather and dry conditions.
Originally, the second shut-off this week, set to start shortly after 12 a.m. Thursday, was to include 29,000 customers in 12 counties.
But by Wednesday night, PG&E said it had scaled back the planned PSPS to about 6,000 customers in 11 counties in response to the incoming weather system, which is weaker than the one earlier this week that prompted the first of the two PSPS events.
Nearly 1,800 Lake County customers originally had been included in the original notifications. PG&E said Wednesday night the number of Lake County customers expected to be impacted had been reduced to 94, of which three are in the Medical Baseline program.
The Lake County customers included in the Thursday PSPS are in the Cobb and Middletown areas, and east of Lower Lake.
In addition to Lake, these are the counties to be impacted in the Thursday PSPS:
Butte: 768 customers, 69 Medical Baseline customers. Colusa: 553 customers, 38 Medical Baseline customers. Glenn: 376 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers. Kern: 664 customers, 34 Medical Baseline customers. Napa: 468 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers. Shasta: 721 customers, 53 Medical Baseline customers. Solano: 1,026 customers, 72 Medical Baseline customers. Sonoma: 127 customers, 3 Medical Baseline customers. Tehama: 1,227 customers, 126 Medical Baseline. Yolo: 250 customers, 5 Medical Baseline customers.
Due to the small number of Lake County customers, PG&E will not open a community resource center locally.
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.
