About 85 stores, half the number that are in the mall, were without power since 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning. PG&E blames the outage on an equipment failure in an underground vault on Bush and Battery streets.
Firefighters came out to the smoking manhole, but didn't put any water on it. They waited for PG&E to do the repairs.
At least four businesses were impacted, including the mall, a standard oil building, the San Francisco Chronicle building and a Marriot Hotel.
John Ferris, a guest from Southern California, told ABC7 News what it was like inside the hotel.
"It's a mess inside. There's only one elevator bank working and nobody seems to know what's going on. It's been scary inside, really," said Ferris.
The stores on the older side of the Westfield Mall were open all day, including Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and the movie theaters.
The lights came back on at 4:00 p.m. Some stores re-opened immediately, but others had no workers inside and remained closed.
The San Francisco Chronicle building is using power from generators. PG&E estimated that Vault failure to blame for mall power outageall power should be back on at about 9:00 p.m. after repairs are finished.
