PG&E Outages Affect Thousands In Sonoma County, North Bay

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — More than 2,000 North Bay PG&E customers were among some 51,000 affected by power outages Tuesday across the Bay Area, with high winds and other weather conditions to blame in some cases, the utility company reported.

PG&E said maximum wind gusts of 97 and 96 mph were recorded at the Santa Fe Geothermal and Pine Flat Road weather stations in Sonoma County, while stations in Contra Costa and Santa Clara had gusts exceeding 80 mph.

In Sonoma County, outages were affecting 712 customers near Sebastopol, 129 customers in Santa Rosa and 99 customers west of Petaluma near Laguna Lake.

The outage near Sebastopol started at 9:23 a.m. Tuesday and was likely caused by weather, PG&E said.

An equipment issue was believed to be the cause of an outage affecting 99 people west of Petaluma and south of Bodega Avenue, near Laguna Lake and the Sonoma-Marin County Line. The outage started at 3:31 a.m. Tuesday and PG&E expects power restoration by 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Meanwhile, an outage affecting 129 people east of Fulton Road and south of West Third Street in Santa Rosa was attributed to scheduled maintenance. The power went out just after 9 a.m. Tuesday and is expected to come back on by 5 p.m. Tuesday, PG&E said.

Elsewhere in the North Bay, 594 customers near Angwin in Napa County were without power since 3:31 a.m. Tuesday in an outage believed to be caused by an equipment issue. As of 10:26 a.m. Tuesday, PG&E was at the scene working to repair the issue.

In Solano County, two outages were reportedly affecting Vallejo 289 customers. The outages started early Tuesday morning and were caused by equipment issues. PG&E hopes to restore service by 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

An outage near Travis Air Force Base left 224 customers without service. The outage started at 9:24 a.m. Tuesday and was likely caused by weather, PG&E said. An estimated time for restoration was not yet known.

PG&E said multiple PG&E crews were working safely and as quickly as possible to assess damage and restore power. The company said it was moving crews Tuesday to the most impacted locations and using helicopters to speed up restoration efforts.

PG&E said 350 personnel were assigned to electric distribution and transmission Tuesday while another 302 electric troublemen were working to restore service and 65 substation switchmen were working on repairs and restoration of wind-driven outages.

High Wind Warning

The outages came amid dry weather and a high wind warning, the latter of which expired at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Hurricane-force winds were reported in some mountainous areas, though people can generally expect gusts of 60 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Winds were expected to gradually subside throughout Tuesday afternoon.

During the windy conditions early Tuesday, the city of Calistoga closed the 900 block of Foothill because of downed power lines and downed trees.

As soon as the high wind warning expired at 10 a.m., the National Weather Service San Francisco Bay Area implemented a high wind advisory for parts of the Bay Area— including the North Bay mountains— through 6 p.m. Tuesday.

"Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects," the weather service said. "Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result. ... Use extra caution when driving, especially if operating a high profile vehicle. Secure outdoor objects."