PG&E issues weather ‘all clear,’ begins restoring power to areas impacted by PSPS
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said its crews began conducting patrols on Wednesday after the high winds that prompted a public safety power shutoff the previous night had subsided.
The company said its meteorologists began issuing the weather “all clear” Wednesday morning for portions of affected areas impacted by the public safety power shutoff, or PSPS.
As of 10 p.m. Wednesday, PG&E said it had restored power to 55% — or 27,000 — of the impacted customers.
The remaining customers are expected to have their power restored by late Thursday afternoon or early Thursday evening, PG&E said.
PG&E had been planning to turn off the power to 51,000 counties across 18 counties on Tuesday night.
However, on Wednesday, the company said it removed five counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Sierra, Trinity and Yuba — from the shutoff scope.
That left 48,000 customers in portions of Lake and 12 counties: Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Mendocino, Napa, Plumas, Shasta, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama and Yolo.
In Lake County, the number of impacted customers in the first PSPS of the year was 4,563, including 353 in the Medical Baseline program, PG&E said.
During the shutoff, PG&E said it recorded wind gusts of 56 miles per hour at Jarbo Gap in Butte County, 48 miles per hour at Wilson Hill Road in Shasta County and 55 miles per hour at Thomes Creek in Tehama County.
Once the windstorm had passed, PG&E said its crews had to begin patrolling more than 3,289 miles of transmission and distribution lines to ensure that no damage or hazards existed before reenergizing the lines to restore power to customers.
PG&E said 1,302 ground patrol units and 33 helicopters were involved in the patrol work.
By Wednesday afternoon, power restoration had begun in some areas where PG&E said it was safe to do so.
There were reports in some parts of Lake County that power was being turned on Wednesday afternoon.
At the same time, due to the Cache fire in Clearlake, transmission lines through the fire area had been temporarily deenergized, according to radio reports.
A PG&E map of the PSPS area showed a large portion of Lake County’s impacted customers remained without power early Thursday morning, with restoration expected by 2 p.m. Thursday in most of those outage areas.
Three community resource centers remain open in Lake County until the outage is fully resolved. They are open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. They are:
— Clearlake Senior Community Center, 3245 Bowers Ave., Clearlake.
— Mountain Lions Club (also known as Little Red Schoolhouse), 15780 Bottle Rock Road, Cobb.
— Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians Red Hills property, 7130 Red Hills Road, Kelseyville.
The centers offer charging for medical equipment and electronic devices, information on the outage, and water, snacks and other essential items.
For more information visit the PSPS website.
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.