The storm is long gone, but tens of thousands of Bay Area residents are still without power because of it.
Along Blossom Hill in south San Jose, two damaged power poles left lines sagging to the sidewalk.
Oak Grove High School across the street was closed for the second straight day because they have no power. And more than 1,000 homes – just in that area -- are still waiting for the lights to come back on.
“Overall we’re doing okay. We’re just miserable. Miserably cold, right?” said Esther Rodriguez of San Jose.
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She and Carlos Rodriguez have lived in their house for 50 years and say the only other time they’ve seen a power outage like this – was the 1989 earthquake.
“So we weren’t prepared, but thank goodness we had flashlights, we have bottled water and that’s it,” said Esther. “We had to drive to fast food right.”
They took the frozen items in their freezer to friends and are now trashing the spoiled food.
But they’ve had to eat out – and now need ice to keep Carlos's insulin cold.
“To me it seems like it’s going to be a little longer than what they predict,” he said. “They have to replace the two cracked poles, replace all the lines. It’s a very bad situation.”
Their neighbor, also named Carlos Rodriguez, says they’ve essentially been camping at home.
“If we want to eat at home or cook something really quick or for our coffee in the morning, firing up the propane grill and just boiling some water in a pot to cook up some coffee and then get along with our day,” he said.
PG&E said the storm caused the third most outages of any storm in the utility's history.
“It was pretty intense on Sunday with hurricane- force winds, a first ever for our California coast and it was so widespread,” said Teresa Alvarado, vice president of PG&E’s South Bay and Central Coast region.
In the South Bay, PG&E has restored 238,000 customers. But 15,000 are still in the dark across 600 locations.
“Luckily, we’ve had two good days to do that assessment and restoration work and we’re really hopeful in the next couple of days we’re going to be able to address the remaining outages,” said Alvarado.
For this area, PG&E says the repair is extensive.
Crews are hoping to have power back for the school and the neighborhood by Tuesday night.
