25K In Santa Cruz County Lose Power In Wind-Related Outages

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CA — Some 25,000 Santa Cruz County Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers were in the dark as of 3 p.m. Tuesday as strong, gusty winds blew across California.

The hardest-hit areas included Scotts Valley (6,400 affected), Boulder Creek (2,900 affected), Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley (2,700 affected) Watsonville (2,300 affected), Interlaken (1,700 affected) and Santa Cruz (1,200 affected).

Just to the north, more than 50,000 Bay Area PG&E customers were without power during the height of the outages, said spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian in an email. About 40,000 of those customers had their power restored by 1 p.m.

Dry, windy weather prompted PG&E to shut off power to 5,200 across seven counties in Central California and the Central Coast in an attempt to avoid a possible equipment-sparked wildfire.

PG&E had been preparing for the windstorm, readying staff and relying on storm prediction models and automated technology that regulates the electric grid and tracks outages, Sarkissian said.

"These stormy conditions might cause trees, limbs and other debris to fall into power lines, damage equipment and interrupt electric service," she wrote.

The South Bay was hit hardest. Nearly 25,900 lost power there Tuesday morning, while outages affected another 7,700 on the Peninsula, 2,500 in the North Bay and 1,200 in San Francisco.

The National Weather Service forecast winds would die down Tuesday afternoon. NWS did not issue a red flag warning in the Bay Area.

PG&E does not anticipate enacting a public safety power shutoff in the region.