PG&E begins restoring power to Bay Area counties after planned shutoff
PG&E says it expects to have power fully restored to affected customers by Thursday afternoon.
SAN FRANCISCO -- PG&E announced Wednesday afternoon that its meteorologists have issued the weather "all clear" and the utility is beginning to restore power in some areas affected by shutoffs that affected about 48,000 customers in 13 counties Tuesday evening.
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The power shutoffs, which PG&E calls Public Safety Power Shutoffs and are an attempt to prevent the utility's equipment from sparking wildfires during dry and windy weather conditions, affected thousands of customers in the North Bay counties of Napa, Sonoma and Solano.
Small portions of Contra Costa and Alameda counties were initially part of the planned shutoffs but were removed from the scope of the operation before the shutoffs began, according to PG&E.
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The utility says it expects to restore power by Thursday afternoon to the remaining customers dealing with the outages.
Crews on the ground and via helicopter are inspecting thousands of transmission and distribution lines and will make repairs as necessary before restoring power and notifying customers.
More information about this week's power shutoff can be found here.
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