Bay Bridge in the Dark
Power outage darkens span
NBC Bay Area
Don't recognize the picture? It's the Bay Bridge ... we promise.
It was a dark drive across the Bay Bridge Wednesday morning as the span was hit with a power outage.
The lights went out at about 5 a.m. Power was restored by early afternoon.
The outage was blamed on a section of underground cable that failed near the intersection of Second and Harrison streets, PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said. It was the second time in the past month related to a problem with a cable near Second and Harrison streets. Lights went out on the bridge for more than two hours the evening of Feb. 21.
Molica said crews had trouble accessing some manholes because of cars parked above them.
Navteq Traffic's Paul Cunningham told us this morning that there was no problem with the bridge as a result of the outage and that the metering lights and toll plaza would be working just fine. He's driven the bridge sans light before and said, it shouldn't affect traffic too much. "It's just different," Cunningham said.
The Treasure Island tunnel was also darkened and some areas of San Francisco were also without power. About 1,300 PG&E customers were knocked off the grid. Power was restored to most all of them by about 7:30 a.m. Several traffic lights in the City near the bridge exit were also out, causing concern as the morning traffic began filling the streets. No accidents were reported.
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Bay City News contributed to this report.
Posted Wednesday, Mar 17, 2010 - 6:45 AM PST
