Contra Costa

As more Contra Costa County residents are being tested for the coronavirus, it has become clearer that an increasing proportion of those who test positive are young, between 20 and 50 years old, county health officials said Tuesday.

Pacific Gas & Electric began restoring power Thursday to some of the 120,000 people it intentionally blacked out to ease the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

PG&E continues to downsize the scope of its latest round of proactive power shutoffs as weather conditions improved Wednesday.

PG&E has downsized its power shutoff plan that was set to impact more than 300,000 customers across 25 counties in Northern California.

Power has been restored to “essentially” all customers affected by the PG&E power shutoffs that started Saturday and Tuesday, the utility said late Thursday.

PG&E on Wednesday issued the weather “all-clear” signal for all Bay Area locations impacted by the midweek power shutoffs, giving crews the green light to inspect utility equipment, make repairs if necessary and restore power.

Due to favorable weather conditions PG&E did not shut off power to Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties Tuesday night, as the utility originally said it would, and according to PG&E officials no additional shutoffs are reportedly set to take place at this time.

Hundreds of thousands of PG&E customers are without power in the utility’s latest round of outages prompted by what officials forecasted to be the strongest wind event to hit Northern California in years.

Two “rapidly expanding” fires on each side of state Highway 24 in Lafayette prompted evacuations Sunday, according to a Contra Costa County Fire Protection District spokesman.

PG&E began rolling out another round of outages Saturday expected to impact 940,000 customers. This latest round of blackouts are due to an extreme wind event forecasted to hit Northern California, according to the utility.

An extreme wind event foretasted this weekend may trigger another round of PG&E outages in the Bay Area up to the Central Coast.

Emergency generators are being connected at East Bay Municipal Utilities District facilities in the East Bay to ensure that water service in Alameda and Contra Costa counties continues uninterrupted during this weekend’s Public Safety Power Shutoff.

PG&E crews are working Thursday to restore power to 179,000 customers across 17 counties after it shut off power due to dangerous fire weather.

PG&E is in the process of restoring electricity in some areas after shutting off power to roughly 179,000 customers in parts of 17 counties as dangerous fire weather swept across California.

PG&E has shut off power to roughly 179,000 customers in parts of 17 counties as dangerous fire weather sweeps across California. Kris Sanchez reports.

PG&E spokesperson Melissa Subbotin addresses the potential power shutoffs that could leave customers across Northern California in the dark amid high fire danger.

The dramatic fire at the NuStar tank farm Tuesday prompted a Contra Costa County supervisor to call for more rigorous oversight of at least six petrochemical facilities that he says are currently exempted from his county’s more rigorous regulation under the industrial safety ordinance governing oil refineries and chemical plants.

You might be surprised to learn there’s actually very little government oversight of fuel storage facilities. NBC Bay Area Investigative Reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken dug into inspection records and learned the tank farm is largely exempt from federal and state chemical safety regulations.

PG&E late Friday was nearing completion of restoring electricity to hundreds of thousands of Northern and Central California customers who have been in the dark since earlier this week when the utility deliberately cut power in some areas because of high fire danger.