Heavy downpours and dangerous conditions across the Bay Area had crews scrambling all day long Monday as first responders were called out to several crashes.
It’s unclear if rain was a factor in a crash that left one man dead along Kirker Pass Road in Concord, but roads were certainly slick. As a result, the road was shut down for several hours.
Further south, near the Sunol Boulevard exit of Interstate 680, people were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic after another deadly crash in Pleasanton. Investigators say a vehicle with eight people inside went off the road and down an embankment, leaving two dead and the rest injured.
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It’s likely to be a long week for first responders, as well as for PG&E crews.
Around 18,000 PG&E customers lost power for a few hours Monday afternoon, including businesses along Lincoln Avenue.
“I had two customers trying on some clothes today and in the middle of trying them on, the power went out,” Lana Vo, an employee at Boutique Dandelion, said.
While PG&E is blaming the outage on an equipment failure, not the weather, people like Vo are still worried more problems could pop up as the rain keeps falling.
And with Christmas just days away, this is their busiest time.
“I sure hope it won’t happen again,” Vo said.
PG&E said it has crews in place and a storm outage prediction model that allows them to respond faster to outages.
“That basically just helps us determine any potential timing, location and the number of power outages before we even see the power outages,” PG&E Communications Representative Stephanie Magallon said.
Preparation is crucial for many people across the Bay Area — like one San Jose Many who stopped by one of the city’s sandbag distribution sites.
“I just gotta stop the water from going in the garage,” he said.
