PG&E restores power to most customers affected by outage

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- It was a rude awakening for many people in San Francisco Friday morning after power went off in a number of neighborhoods.

About 22,000 thousand PG&E customers were left in the dark. The culprit was an excavator which hit a major feeder line.

That excavator hit a 12,000-volt power line. Anvil Builders is the construction company doing work near 22nd and Illinois streets.

"Prior to doing any digging or underground work, we have our customers call 8-11. It's a safety line where we'll send out a crew to make sure that there are no underground hazards," explained PG&E spokeswoman Megan McFarland.

PG&E told us the company had contacted them. Anvil said their crews never found a designated marked spot from PG&E where they were digging.

When the operator hit that feeder line, it then affected equipment inside a substation near the site. The distribution center supplies power to those neighborhoods affected.

The outage also impacted some Muni Metro stations.

Folio, a bookstore in Noe Valley, was in the dark.

"When I got to work, I noticed that Whole Foods was closed and so I thought something was off and we had to basically reboot everything here in the store," said Aren Haun of Folio Book Story

In some cases, motherhood was interrupted.

"I didn't know how long it was going to last because I had milk in the fridge for her, frozen food for her that we use for smoothies. My husband tried to come to Whole Foods to grab fruit and stuff, but it was closed so he said there's panic on the streets," lauged Marci Canha, a Noe Valley resident.

At Bernie's coffee shop, employees used the existing boiling water to quickly make extra coffee. "What was interesting was that usually eight out of 10 customers use Apple Pay or credit cards and everyone had cash today, so look people still do have cash after all," said Bernadette Melvin of Bernie's Coffee in Noe Valley.

See PG&E's outage map here.