Ongoing Power Outages Impact Thousands of Bay Area Residents
Power outages across the Bay Area have left hundreds of thousands of residents without power over the past several days.[0] As of early Tuesday afternoon, 155,000 PG&E customers were impacted, with San Mateo County alone having 64,000 outages.[1] Mountain View and West Menlo Park were both heavily affected, with over 5,000 customers in the former and 3,500 in the latter without power. The outages were caused by the severe weather system that swept across the region. By 6 p.m.[2] Tuesday, 128,363 customers in the South Bay, 68,196 in the East Bay, and 53,958 on the Peninsula were still without power.
Schools in the Campbell Union High School District, Campbell Union Elementary School District, Cupertino Union School District, and Los Gatos Union School District were all forced to close Wednesday due to the ongoing power outages.[3] As of Thursday morning, some Los Altos customers were told their power wouldn't be restored until 10 p.m.[4] Friday evening[4]
PG&E’s outage map showed that around 4 p.m. on March 14, about 2,000 customers in West Menlo Park were impacted by three separate outages.[1] By Thursday morning, one of those outages was still active, impacting more than 1,000 customers with an estimated restoration time of March 17 at 12:30 p.m.[5]
At 9 a.m., around 1,500 customers located to the west of El Camino Real, and just south of Whipple Avenue in Redwood City, were without power. It is estimated that power will be restored by 11 p.m. on Wednesday morning.[2] Approximately 3,000 people living on either side of Alameda de Las Pulgas in Redwood City are presently without electricity and there is no information as to when power will be restored.
The storm system that’s caused all this havoc is the 11th atmospheric river to strike California this season and is expected to move east.[6] The high winds and intense rain have caused more than 181,000 customers to lose power, with the National Weather Service recording top wind gusts of 97 mph in Santa Clara County’s Loma Prieta, 93 mph in Alameda County’s Mines Tower, and 74 mph in San Francisco Airport.
0. “Trees falling all over in San Mateo County” San Mateo Daily Journal, 15 Mar. 2023, https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/trees-falling-all-over-in-san-mateo-county/article_9241ff4c-c2e7-11ed-b9ab-671fab384dd4.html
1. “Fallen trees cause power outages for thousands of Palo Alto Utilities customers” Palo Alto Online, 14 Mar. 2023, https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/03/14/tree-hits-power-line-causing-power-outage-for-1800-palo-alto-utilities-customers
2. “Power at Menlo Park schools still out as weather-induced outages continue into Thursday” The Almanac Online, 14 Mar. 2023, https://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=34067
3. “Schools Closed in Bay Area Due to Ongoing Power Outages” NBC Bay Area, 15 Mar. 2023, https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/south-bay/schools-close-in-south-bay/3181263/
4. “Thousands across South Bay grapple with extended power outages amid storm cleanup, PG&E work” KGO-TV, 17 Mar. 2023, https://abc7news.com/power-outages-south-bay-los-altos-pge/12963240/
5. “Power returns to most of Mountain View, but pockets without electricity persist” Mountain View Voice, 14 Mar. 2023, https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2023/03/14/peninsula-cities-pummeled-by-weather-induced-power-outages
6. “100000 Californians still have no power as storms whip hurricane-force winds, flood homes and threaten 25 million …” kwwl.com, 15 Mar. 2023, https://www.kwwl.com/news/national/100-000-californians-still-have-no-power-as-storms-whip-hurricane-force-winds-flood-homes/article_31489f85-0e8f-5188-9636-3edb108f0d3c.html
