PG&E said Wednesday morning power restoration after the Public Safety Power Shutoffs may be delayed for some customers if smoke from nearby wildfires prevents aircraft from making inspections or if crews find significant damage to lines from wind-blown tree branches and other debris .
PG&E meteorologists gave the "all clear" late Tuesday and overnight to allow for inspections and restoration of power to proceed Wednesday in areas of the North Bay and elsewhere that had power shut off proactively amid hot and windy weather conditions earlier this week.
Crews began Monday night implementing what PG&E calls a Public Safety Power Shutoff, which affected an estimated 172,000 customers in 22 counties, including thousands in Napa and Sonoma counties.
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With the "all clear" given, more than 3,000 PG&E employees began at daylight Wednesday the process of inspecting by ground and helicopter about 10,750 miles of transmission and distribution lines for damage before restoring power, with the goal of restoring power for most customers by the end of the day.
Weather stations registered winds of more than 60 mph in parts of Sonoma County Tuesday night. About 15,000 customers in Santa Rosa and about 2,600 in unincorporated parts of the county were without power, while in Napa County about 5,028 customers in elevated areas lost power.
Napa and Sonoma were the only two Bay Area counties affected by the power shutoff. The other 20 counties affected are Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Humboldt, Kern, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne and Yuba.
