Power restored to all in East Bay after fire at PG&E substation, agency says

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Power has been restored to thousands of customers in Oakland Monday after a fire at a PG&E substation caused big problems in the East Bay Sunday.

The power outages caused a frustrating ripple effect across Oakland.

At the height of the outages Sunday, 50,000 customers lost power.

The outages stretched all the way from the Oakland Hills to the Alameda border, including the Oakland Airport.

The city of Alameda was also affected by the outage, even though they have their own municipal power company. They use PG&E transmission lines, so 15,000 residents lost electricity.

Two of the city's four bridges got stuck in the up position at the same time, making them impassable and jamming up traffic.

Alameda's mayor says the city is asking the county to drill into what happened and ascertain when and how backup generators were deployed. They are looking at the outage as a fire drill so the bridges aren't out of commission the next time there's an emergency.

Social media video shows TSA halting check-ins after the power went out as airport officials temporarily shut down services.

Many people said they were delayed before arriving in Oakland.

"They boarded half the flight, and we were the last ones on so they were like yeah we'll just not put you on the airplane right now, so we waited in portland a little longer and got over here and they got the power running and everything," Bently Anderson said.

Oakland Fire says the officials cause of that transformer fire is still under investigation.

They say crews have to examine the damaged transformer to figure out how the fire started.

You can check the status of the PG&E outages here.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

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