Power restored after massive San Francisco outage leaves 130,000 PG&E customers without electricity
By Jose Fabian
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced Tuesday that all power had now been restored to the city after this weekend’s massive outage.
About 5,000 San Francisco Pacific Gas and Electric customers were still without power Monday after the outage left about a third of the city in the dark on Saturday, the utility company said.
PG&E said the remaining customers without power were mostly in the Richmond, Presidio and Civic Center neighborhoods. City facilities in the impacted Civic Center area were closed for in-person services on Monday, including City Hall, the Mail Library, and SFMTA customer service.
On Sunday morning, PG&E said it had restored power to 110,000 customers. By the afternoon, about an additional 4,000 customers had service restored. According to the utility company, there was a fire at one of its substations, and it caused “significant and extensive” damage.
At a press conference Monday, PG&E said the fire at the substation on Mission and 8th streets started shortly after 1 p.m. on Saturday, and the utility had to de-energize portions of the system to make it safe for firefighters to fight the fire.
A visibly upset San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie spoke Monday at a generator-powered City Hall, even noting the smell of diesel at the building.
“Having no power for two days for at least 4,000 customers here in Civic Center. For us to be without power here at City Hall, two days in, it’s unacceptable, and we’re going to demand answers, and they better be able to answer them,” Lurie said.
The outage has cost local business owners and residents, and Lurie said he is urging those affected to file claims with PG&E.
“It’s been a big hit to our city, and I have been telling PG&E leadership about that,” Lurie said. “What we’re seeing this weekend is unacceptable.”
On Monday, PG&E announced it would be giving customer credits to affected businesses and residents.
“Residential customers will automatically receive a $200 bill credit, and business customers will receive an approximately $2,500 credit,” PG&E said. “Customers don’t need to file a claim or take any action; credits will appear on bills as ‘Customer Satisfaction Adjustment.’ If customers choose to, they can also pursue a separate claims process for extended outages.”
Lurie also spoke about Waymo and said the company needs to “do better” during events like Saturday.
“We got word of Waymo blocking some emergency vehicles. I made a call to the Waymo CEO and asked them to get the cars off the road immediately. They complied,” Lurie said. “What we need from them is them to be in better touch with us and having a direct line of communication with us during events like that. They need to do better … We need them to be more proactive.”
According to Lurie, even as a third of the city was in the dark, there were no major incidents.
“No major incidents on Saturday night when you had 130,000 customers, a couple of hundred thousand people likely, without power. We did well as a city. I’m confident in our city’s ability. It’s PG&E that needs to answer these questions for us,” Lurie said.
As of Monday afternoon, the cause of the fire is unknown.
On Sunday, PG&E said it expected all customers affected by the substation outage to have power by 2 p.m. Monday at the latest. However, a PG&E spokesperson said Monday that while 96% of the outages would be resolved by 2 p.m. Monday, the estimated time of restoration for the remaining customers was pushed back to 6 a.m. Tuesday.
The San Francisco Department of Emergency Services said on Sunday that PG&E would be setting up a community resource center, along with city staff, for those without power, ahead of an expected wave of heavy rain from an atmospheric river. It will be open from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and will be located at 251 18th Avenue, at the Richmond Rec Center. After Sunday, it will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Lurie said there was a small business outreach plan to let businesses affected by the outage know they can file claims with PG&E.
“Some customers are starting to get power back with PG&E restoring power to 4,000 more homes, but there are still 17,000 customers without power. If you have a small business that’s impacted, you can file a claim at https://pge.com/claim,” Lurie said.
At the peak of the outage, the utility company said about 130,000 customers were affected.
Muni disruptions
Muni service along the Market Street Subway was affected due to the power outage, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Muni Alerts.
Muni riders who are affected by the service disruption can use BART for free between Embarcadero and Civic Center, BART said.
“See a station agent to be let in,” BART said.
Waymo suspends service
The autonomous driving technology company suspended its robotaxi services during the power outage.
The company announced Sunday that it was resuming its ride-hailing services.
“While the Waymo Driver is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, the sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the affected intersections,” Waymo said. “This contributed to traffic friction during the height of the congestion.”
