Sonoma County Prepares For Widespread PG&E Weather Outage: PHOTOS

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Seven Santa Rosa schools will be closed Wednesday because of the PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff, city school officials said Tuesday. As many as 62,000 PG&E customers in Sonoma County — 800,000 customers across Northern California — could have their power cut after midnight Wednesday morning, according to PG&E.

Maria Carrillo High School, Rincon Valley Middle School, Santa Rosa Middle School, Hidden Valley Elementary School, Protor Terrace Elementary School, Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School and Lewis Education Center will be closed.

All after-school activities, such as childcare and sports, are canceled at those schools because the shutoff will affect them.

School officials said the schools could be closed beyond Wednesday because power may not be back on Thursday or later in the week. Other schools may be closed later in the week if PG&E expands the power shutoff area, according to school officials.

Parents can check whether a school is open at www.srcschools.org

All Santa Rosa Junior College campuses and sites will also be closed Wednesday, Oct. 9, because of the predicted public safety power shutoff in Sonoma County and neighboring Northern California counties.

SRJC "will remain closed until we notify the community otherwise," school officials said in a news release. "All activities and classes, including online, will be canceled. The college is continuing to monitor the situation and will provide further updates as information becomes available."

A National Weather Service red-flag warning is set to go into effect Wednesday morning for the North Bay and much of Northern and Central California. Because of the weather conditions, PG&E, which has a weather team of its own, has plans to shut off power to nearly 1 million customers in 34 counties until the weather improves. Once the power is off, it may take up to five days for PG&E to restore service because all equipment needs to be inspected for any damage.

See PG&E's map of the affected areas.

The city of Santa Rosa and county of Sonoma have activated their emergency operations centers, as has Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit.

In anticipation of high winds, Cal Fire is increasing its staffing levels. All hand crews will be fully staffed and ready to respond at any given time, day or night, as well as all reserve fire engine crews, Cal Fire LNU Spokesman Bruce Lang said.

In the event of a major fire, additional staffing measures have been taken to fill the positions needed for the command and control functions of Cal Fire's Emergency Command Center, Lang said.

An additional Cal Fire firefighting helicopter arrived Tuesday evening to support any needs within the region through the duration of the weather event.

— Bay City News Service contributed to this report.