Storm triggers power outage for thousands in San Francisco neighborhoods

By CBS Bay Area

Friday night was another soggy evening in San Francisco, and for thousands of neighbors, that meant another power outage.

“No, it’s not our first time,” Jamal Dangi, who works at Richmond Market, told CBS News Bay Area. 

The market lies along Balboa Street, and Dangi said this is their third power outage in the last few weeks. 

“Just got blacked out and from nowhere, and I was surprised like what to do,” he said. 

He bought a flashlight after he and other small businesses experienced a three-day-long outage on December 20. 

“When there is a power outage, no camera is working, and something could be happening, you know? Nobody knows. So, it’s just about safety,” Dangi said. 

Zachary Makowsky, who lives a few blocks away, was happy to be able to buy some beverages for his family amidst the outage. 

“When will the outages stop? Not this outage, but the outages in general?” he said. 

He added that he hopes the city can find alternative solutions to PG&E. 

“I generally don’t like monopolies and would love to have another option because they don’t seem to care that much. I know that they’ve got bigger problems across the state of California, with wildfires and whatnot. And I know they’re not doing great financially, but the local businesses are suffering a lot more than we are. We can just light some candles and get on with our day,” he said. 

The power in the SF-Seacliff and Richmond District area came back on shortly before 5:15 pm. About 3,400 customers were without power for about 90 minutes, according to PG&E. 

Officials said the outage was related to maintenance work being performed in the area, and confirmed that the circuit has returned to normal operations. 

Just a block down, Michael de Lucca, the owner of DD Cycles, was not affected by Friday’s outage. 

But last month, he wasn’t so lucky, as he was part of the 130,000 San Francisco customers without power for multiple days. 

“Just before Christmas, so that kind of tanked business and everything,” he told CBS News Bay Area. 

He said the outage caused a ripple effect for multiple nearby businesses and restaurants. 

“Some people tried to eat by candlelight and that’s kind of hard,” De Lucca said. 

He added that he and his staff were experiencing payment problems, amongst other issues, due to the outage. 

“The credit card machine goes down. That’s the biggie, in the old days, it wouldn’t have been too bad because people paid with check and cash. 99.9% people no longer pay with check or cash,” he said. 

While Friday’s brief blackout was restored much quicker than before, Dangi and thousands of San Franciscans are hoping they just won’t be left in the dark again any time soon. 

“No, no, no, I don’t want to deal with that again,” Dangi said.