Yesterday around 5 p.m., a power outage affected 3,000 PG&E customers in downtown Santa Cruz to Live Oak experienced power outages for a few hours as rain poured down.
PG&E spokesperson Stephanie Magallon said the outage was unrelated to the storms, however. The source of the power outage was due to a damaged power pole that caused wires to fall. PG&E maintenance was on the scene just 10 minutes after the reported outage, according to Magallon.
By 7:30 p.m., power was restored according to Magallon.
The outage happened the same night that right over the hill, electricity was cut to more than 18,000 customers in San Jose, due to what Magallon said was a circuit failure—again, unrelated to the storm.
As winter looms, Magallon said that PG&E is implementing a storm outage prediction model, which determines potential timing location and the number of power outages that might happen during a winter storm. Vegetation management crews are also eliminating any type of threat surrounding power lines to reduce that risk of outages, including trees and other vegetation, according to Magallon.
Just over a month ago on Nov. 8, a power outage affected 23,000 customers in the San Lorenzo Valley area. According to a statement, these outages were also unrelated to weather conditions. Magallon said that PG&E will take similar precautionary steps for customers in the Santa Cruz Mountains as well.
