PG&E power outage curtailed in Northern California as utility cites improving weather outlook

PG&E prematurely halted on Wednesday its planned power shut-offs in Sonoma County and curtailed them across other parts of Northern California as weather conditions improved, saving tens of thousands of customers the hardship of yet another span of days without electricity.

California’s largest power company, which has adopted preemptive blackouts to curb the risk of catastrophic fire caused by its equipment, ended up cutting power Wednesday to 48,000 customers in 10 counties, a small fraction of those originally anticipated in the utility’s notices to ratepayers earlier this week. At that point it foresaw shutting down lines serving more than 300,000 customers in 25 counties.

The drop-off was roughly proportional in Sonoma County, where 5,858 customers were without power Wednesday night after nearly 40,000 had been advised Monday to prepare for 48 hours without electricity.

As Wednesday began, PG&E had intended to shut off power to 19,265 customers.

Residents and officials expressed relief at the reduced outage, along with concern the community may be paying a stiff emotional price.

“Each of these events has been stressful,” said Chris Godley, the county’s emergency management director, whose college major was in psychology. “These deenergizations collectively are straining our social fabric.”

Godley said he is concerned that people may stop heeding the shut-off warnings or make less effort at preparing for them.

“I do think there’s a danger of the boy who cried wolf phenomenon,” said Kristine Burk, an east Santa Rosa resident who got up at 5 a.m. Wednesday to shower and make coffee and breakfast because the outage would cut off her well water.

No one wants wildfires, said Burk, who has been hit by all six of PG&E’s outages this fall, but she questioned PG&E’s handling of the shut-offs.

“I wish I felt like there was some method to the madness,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.”

Joann Triebel, a Rincon Valley resident for 52 years, said PG&E’s repeated shut-offs generate uncertainty.

“They keep this warning up for a couple of days,” she said. “That drives me crazy because it really gets me stressed out.”

David Rabbitt, chairman of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, said he wished there could be more certainty to the outage warnings. PG&E nearly halved the number of local customers in planned outage zones late Tuesday, after many residents had likely gone to bed.

While it’s good to see fewer people left in the dark, Rabbitt said, the warnings that turn out to be unwarranted are causing frustration.

“The fuzziness is a little overwhelming,” he said.

The utility’s mid-day decision Wednesday to halt the local outage came as dry wind continued to blow in Santa Rosa. But humidity no longer met the threshold for an outage aimed at preventing wildfires, said Deanna Contreras, a PG&E spokeswoman.

“The weather models in advance of this wind event were extremely variable - showing the possibility for either a rain event or a dry offshore wind event,” she said.

The shut-offs, which started about 7 a.m., primarily impacted customers in east Santa Rosa and the adjoining unincorporated area reaching down into Sonoma Valley. The process was halted before any west county areas lost power.

PG&E plans to restore power to all customers by the end of the day Thursday, but could complete the work sooner in Sonoma County as a result of the curtailed outage, Contreras said.

Sonoma County’s official tally on Wednesday listed 5,858 PG&E customers without power, amounting to 16,108 residents in a 109-square-mile area, according to the county. There were 13,651 affected customers in Lake County - the largest number in Northern California - 9,627 in Napa County and 171 in Mendocino County.

Colleen Falconer, owner of Colleen’s Coffee Shop at the intersection of Mountain Hawk Drive and Highway 12, said the shop lost power around 7:10 a.m. This blackout was the first time she decided to stay open, offering a shortened menu of pastries, cold sandwiches and coffee.

Customers who have become regulars trickled in for a caffeine boost in a dim room illuminated by a portable lamp and the sun beaming through the front windows.

“I lost everything in the walk-in (cooler in the first shut-off). It was pretty devastating,” Falconer said. “I’m a pretty new owner so this has been hard. I thought we were past all this.”

The previous shut-offs have cost Falconer 10 days worth of sales and thousands of dollars in food losses for a small business barely a year old, she said.

Customers Leyla Carreon, 52, and Richard Carreon, 67, of Oakmont said they have learned lessons with each power shut-off over the past two months, but there is a fatigue factor settling in.

“I’m just tired,” Leyla Carreon said. “I’m ready for the rain so I can have a break from being on high alert.”

Richard Carreon, a retired Verizon employee who used to maintain cellphone sites, said he understands why the utility proactively cuts the power.

But life is harder without basics most residents rely on - like warm meals and hot water.

“It’s been a series of adjustments (each time),” he said. “We weren’t as prepared as we could’ve been. It’s been stressful trying to figure out what to do with one foot in, one foot out the door.”

A red flag warning was set to remain in place until 7 a.m. Thursday, although forecasters said that it may be dropped sooner than that. Dry north winds gained strength before dawn Wednesday, including a 71-mph gust recorded at 6 a.m. on Mount St. Helena.

Tuesday night a narrow weather front passed over the region, dropping at most one-tenth of an inch of rain in some areas, including the lower Russian River.

Spencer Tangen, a National Weather Service, said that amount would wet grasses “but with the gusty winds and dry conditions it doesn’t take long at all to dry out.”

“There still are concerns about fire weather,” he said.

Sonoma County issued a cold weather advisory Wednesday morning in response to forecasts of temperatures in the 30s overnight in parts of the county that might be without power.

PG&E has opened four community resource centers offering water, coffee and tea, snacks, ice, Internet access and restrooms, along with blankets and heating or cooling as needed. The centers are located in Santa Rosa, Cloverdale, Sonoma and Sea Ranch. Details are available online at www.pge.com/pspsupdates.

All Sonoma County schools will be open Thursday.