Swanson said repair crews will be on hand tonight in preparation for possible outages. Customers who lose power should call the outage hotline at 1-800-743-5002, he said.
About 1.1 million PG&E customers in the Bay Area had their lights shut off during a series of storms that peaked Jan. 4. In preparation for outages this weekend, PG&E is offering safety tips to its customers.
The utility is asking customers to make sure flashlights have fresh batteries and that cell phones are charged or a hard line phone is available, as portable phones will not work during an outage.
PG&E also recommends residents freeze plastic containers of water to keep refrigerated items cold during an outage, Swanson said.
Customers without power should not use candles for lighting because of fire risks or barbeques and grills for heat because of carbon monoxide poisoning risks, he said.
Additional information about what to do when a power outage occurs can be found online at http://www.pge.com/storms.
