A major power outage in Monterey County has left about 55,700 people without electricity since Sunday morning.
The Pacific Gas and Electric company said customers lost electricity around 9:30 a.m. The outage affected nearby areas like Sand City, Seaside, Pacific Grove, Castroville and Carmel-by-the-Sea.
By 2:45 p.m., service was restored to about 26,000 customers, officials said. PG&E hopes to have the power fully restored to all customers by 11 p.m. Sunday night.
PG&E is warning residents to unplug or turn off all electric appliances to avoid overloading circuits once the power is restored. They have more safety tips on their website about power outages.
Due to the power outage, the line at a bakery in Carmel was stretched out the door because it was one of the few shops open in town.
Workers at Carmel Bakery were boiling coffee on the gas range and up front, a cashier was using a calculator to ring up customers. A handwritten sign on the window said "cash only."
Dawn Moyna said she's worked there for more than 30 years and even if they ran out of pastries, they would find some other way to stay open.
"We never close," she said.
PG&E officials believe the power outage may be due to a high-voltage transmission line that came down near Moss Landing around 7 a.m. The cause of the outage is still under investigation.
Bay City News contributed to this story.
