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A PG&E spokesperson said Wednesday, Feb. 7, that this week’s storm has caused the most outages for the utility in nearly 30 years, affecting more than 1.4 million customers since Sunday, Feb. 4, throughout its service area.
Nearly 38,000 customers in the Bay Area remained without power as of 2 p.m. Wednesday, a total that rose from about 35,000 earlier in the day. The majority of the affected customers are in the South Bay, which has more than 19,000 without power, and in the North Bay, where nearly 14,000 are without power, PG&E spokesperson Fiona Chan said.
The rise in outages coincided with another round of rain and wind that came through the region, dropping more than a half-inch of rain in parts of the Bay Area since Wednesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
When the atmospheric river starting blowing through the region, Sunday saw the highest number of outages in a single day since the beginning of PG&E’s modern period of recording outages in 1995.
Over the past handful of days, the storm has broken or toppled more than 700 PG&E power poles and damaged hundreds of transformers, according to the utility, which has about 5,000 employees and contractors working to restore power.
The PG&E crews will have better conditions to deal with later this week. Although some showers are still possible around the Bay Area later Wednesday, dry weather is in store Thursday morning and into the weekend, according to the weather service.
A list of community resource centers set up to help affected residents and more information about PG&E’s response to the storm’s impacts can be found on PG&E’s website.
We pay an exorbitant amount for our energy (electricity and gas) but where does the money go (executive salaries?). It seems as though the electrical grid is less reliable each year. What is the maintenance program for all the parts of our electrical infrastructure. I really don’t believe we are getting our money’s worth and our money is not being properly spent. As a long retired person on a fixed income with dwindling savings, I don’t know how much longer I will be able to afford to live here and pay the exorbitant cost for energy as well as keep up with ever increasing costs and taxes for everything.