Power restored to 38K in the East Bay

BERKELEY, Calif. -- About 38,000 PG&E customers who lost power in the East Bay Tuesday afternoon have had their service restored, according to a utility spokeswoman.

The outage started around 1:45 p.m. and the power came back on just before 3 p.m., PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said.

"We are still investigating the exact cause but we do know that the outage originated at a substation in Berkeley," Sarkissian said.

The outage also affected customers in Albany, El Cerrito, Kensington, Oakland, Richmond and San Pablo, she said.

The Downtown Berkeley BART station was shut down temporarily because of the outage, during which trains were not stopping at the station. BART officials said the station has since reopened and that normal service has resumed.

Berkeley City College also shut down temporarily this afternoon, but reopened as of 3:30 p.m.

Berkeley police said the outage affected several intersections, disabling stoplights for some time. Police advise the public to exercise caution when approaching an uncontrolled intersection and to treat it like a four-way stop.