PG&E says it's mobilizing crews across the Bay Area in anticipation of this week’s storms. But on Wednesday, the company was dealing with power outages, affecting thousands of customers in San Francisco and Pacifica.
On States Street in San Francisco, a team of PG&E crew members in cherry pickers, replaced a downed power line. But it wasn't exactly clear what brought it down, because the storm had not yet come ashore.
“The crew was already here. Which was good, that only took them 10 minutes to get here. But there was a downed powerline,” said San Francisco resident Christopher Struck.
According to PG&E'S outage tracker, portions of the Castro, Noe Valley, Twin Peaks and Mission neighborhoods were initially affected, beginning at around 8 a.m. Wednesday.
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A PG&E spokesperson says just over 7,000 customers lost power.
Downtown Pacifica also got hit with a surprise outage and it has since been restored to most customers. For some parts of San Francisco, the power outage lasted for most of the day.
At the Castro Gas Station, Haitham Saleh was in the dark for hours. Like many of his neighbors, Saleh got an update the power would be returned by 10 a.m., and then 1 p.m. and then 4 p.m.
"Around 4? So, we have to close. We're out of business. That's crazy," Saleh said.
Power at the gas station did come back on about 3 p.m. Meanwhile, San Francisco resident Lisa Dominguez and her fellow neighbors couldn't leave their apartment complex.
"We have a PG&E outage, and I can't get out because the gate is locked. And we called the property management company and they're great,” she said. “However, they're saying that there isn't a manual way to open it.”
As for the storm preps, PG&E says they've staged equipment like replacement poles and other items – in case trees come down and damage lines. But the company had no explanation about why power went out in parts of San Francisco and Pacifica before the storm arrived.
According to PG&E Northern Coast Vice President Dave Canny, while the cause of the outage is under investigation in San Francisco, he didn’t have any information on the cause of outage in Pacifica.
