Fierce wind forecast: PG&E warns 850,000 customers of blackout as wildfire risk increases
With extreme winds expected to raise wildfire risks across California this weekend, PG&E Corp. announced Friday it will probably cut power to 850,000 customers in the largest deliberate blackout so far.
PG&E cited winds that the National Weather Service said could surpass 60 mph.
Of paramount concern is critical wildfire danger throughout the state, just days after extreme winds Wednesday night fueled explosive growth of the Kincade Fire, which erupted quickly to 10,000 acres by early Thursday. The fire prompted mandatory evacuation orders for about 2,000 residents in and near the rural town of Geyserville.
The Kincade Fire destroyed 49 homes and other buildings as it burned near idyllic Sonoma County vineyards, before winds calmed later Thursday morning, but no deaths or injuries have been reported. The fire was reported at 21,900 acres and 5 percent containment Friday, and Cal Fire officials said they were scrambling to get the fire further under control quickly.
“We’re worried about the winds resurfacing,” Cal Fire director Tom Porter told reporters at a fire station near Geyserville.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who visited the Geyserville area Friday, declared a state of emergency in Sonoma and Los Angeles counties due to the Kincade Fire and the Tick Fire, the latter of which has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
“We saw smaller versions of what has become all too familiar up here,” Newsom said afterward, alluding to the devastating October 2017 fires in Sonoma and Napa wine country. “Homes completely destroyed, cars that look like they’ve been in a war zone.”
Newsom continued his barrage of criticism against PG&E, saying years of “mismanagement” left its grid vulnerable to high winds. However, he declined to comment on PG&E’s acknowledgment that a live transmission line malfunctioned in the area where the Kincade Fire started. Cal Fire said it doesn’t yet know how the fire started.
The governor did push back on PG&E’s refusal earlier this week to compensate customers who lose power.
“We’ll see. That’s what they say,” Newsom said. “We have a lot of tools in our tool kit,” including the courts and “public opinion, morality, ethics.”
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said it had restored power to all but a few thousand of the 178,000 households and businesses that lost power Wednesday in its latest “public safety power shutoff” event. PG&E said it is considering yet another blackout that would begin Saturday in which some customers could lose power for 48 hours or longer.
The utility has not yet provided specific details on the areas or estimated number of customers that would be impacted by a weekend shutoff event. However, Chief Executive Bill Johnson said late Thursday the blackout would likely be about as widespread as the massive shutoff that began Oct. 9, which cut power to 738,000 households and businesses. He said it could last longer than the Oct. 9 blackout, which left some customers without power for three days.
And local governments have begun releasing details they’ve learned from PG&E.
Placer County said the shutoff will darken portions of the county “from Lincoln to Donner Summit.” The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said nearly 50,000 residents could be affected by a weekend shutoff. The Alameda County sheriff’s department said 57,000 households in Alameda could lose power, Marin County is expecting 86,813 households will be cut off and Contra Costa County expects the blackout to affect 48,000 customers.
State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, tweeted that PG&E could shut power this weekend to more than 170,000 households and businesses in his district alone — an area that includes Marin, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties.
PG&E meteorologist Scott Strenfel at a press conference Thursday said wind gusts in some higher elevations could hit 80 mph during the weekend, with the utility expecting “the strongest offshore winds that we’ve seen in years.” Brendon Rubin-Oster, a forecaster with the NWS, told The Sacramento Bee that gusts could reach 70 mph “in the canyons, the ranges, the mountain passes” of Northern California.
The weather service has issued high wind watches, fire weather watches and red flag warnings that encompass virtually all of the Sacramento Valley, the greater Bay Area and parts of the Sierra Nevada foothills, most of them starting Saturday morning or afternoon and lasting through late Sunday.
Meanwhile in Southern California, strong Santa Ana winds have led the 4,300-acre Tick Fire burning in Los Angeles County to threaten about 10,000 structures as of Thursday evening. More than 40,000 residents were under evacuation orders as of 7 a.m. Friday due to the Tick Fire, according to Cal Fire’s latest incident update.
Southern California Edison shut off power to 20,000 customers and said another 132,000 could be blacked out as Santa Ana winds tear through the south state. San Diego Gas & Electric cut off 16,000 customers.
This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 7:36 AM.
