PG&E: Wire Connector Failure Caused Outage

A PG&E spokesman today officially classified the cause of last night's outage that left thousands of Belmont, San Carlos and Redwood City residents in the dark as equipment failure.

"What failed specifically was a connector that held the wire together," PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said. "That's what caused the wire to come down."

The wire connector on Dartmouth Avenue in San Carlos failed just before 6:30 p.m., sending the high-voltage wire down and prompting the outage that affected 3,768 customers throughout the three cities.

The downed power line also started a small brush fire, but Belmont-San Carlos Fire Marshal Jim Palisi said 14 firefighters responded and contained the flames before they spread to any homes.

Molica said about 630 customers had their power back on by 7:15 p.m., while another 900 got their power back by 7:45 p.m. Just after 8 p.m., about 1,700 more customers had power restored.

The remaining customers got their power back at about 2 a.m., when PG&E completed their repairs to the power line, Molica said.

He said PG&E apologizes to the residents for the inconvenience.

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