PG&E gives ‘all-clear’ to restore power after Northern California shutoffs for wildfire safety
After its first preventive power shutoff of the year, PG&E gave the “all-clear” to a public safety power shutoff Wednesday after it deliberately cut off electricity to more than 4,200 homes and businesses in Northern California due to high fire danger.
The shutoff began about 2 a.m. Wednesday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said, affecting eight counties and two tribal areas under a red flag warning due to strong winds and dry conditions. But by 4:30 p.m., PG&E officials were confident that conditions had improved enough to begin the work of restoring power.
The largest outages were for roughly 1,200 customers in the Corning area of Glenn County and over 1,600 homes and businesses in Shasta County, mainly south of Redding. The shutoff was less severe than originally planned; PG&E had said Tuesday that as many as 8,400 customers were “likely” to be disconnected.
The outages affected small portions of the following counties:
- Butte: 329 customers in the Oroville area
- Colusa: 427 customers in the Stonyford area
- Glenn: 536 customers in Elk Creek, Willows and Orland
- Lake: 56 customers in Lower Lake
- Napa: 0 customers
- Shasta: 1,639 customers in Round Mountain, Montgomery Creek, Igo, Whitmore, Redding and Anderson
- Tehama: 1,207 customers in Corning and Flournoy
- Yolo: 22 customers in the Capay Valley area, including Guinda and Brooks
Two tribal reservations — the Pit River Tribes in Shasta County and the Grindstone Rancheria in Glenn County — were among the customers who had their electricity severed from the grid to prevent electrical equipment from contributing to a fire.
As many as 791 customers identified by PG&E as medical baseline customers could be affected by the engineered outage, the utility said, though the number of those in the dark was not immediately available.
The outages came as the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office issued its first red flag warning of the year, saying low humidity and northerly winds have created critical fire conditions. The area of main concern was along the Valley’s western edge along Interstate 5 corridor, which is the areas targeted in the shutoff. That warning expired Wednesday evening.
PG&E said crews had started patrolling 589 miles of transmission and distribution lines to ensure that no damage or hazards exist before lines are re-energized. The company employs 78 ground patrol personnel, 20 helicopters and two drones for inspections, according to utility officials.
This story was originally published August 30, 2023 at 10:29 AM.