More Than 86K Without Power In Sonoma County: PG&E Shutoff

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — The lights are out again in much of Sonoma County. At 7 a.m. Tuesday, PG&E began shutting off power to 86,713 customers in Sonoma County amid a red flag fire weather warning through Wednesday afternoon for the North Bay.

"Another round of gusty offshore winds will combine with very low humidity to create critical fire weather conditions," according to the National Weather Service San Francisco Bay Area.

The city of Cotati confirmed all power was out Tuesday in the city except for in the industrial area along Redwood Drive, north of the Laguna de Santa Rosa. City officials expect the outage to last until Wednesday.

A recharging facility for Cotati residents with cellphones or other devices or personal electronics that need to be recharged is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Cotati Room, 201 West Sierra Ave.

Other Sonoma County cities and communities affected by this latest PG&E public safety power shutoff include: Annapolis, Bodega, Bodega Bay, Camp Meeker, Cazadero, Cloverdale, Duncan Mills, Forestville, Geyserville, Glen Ellen, Graton, Guerneville, Healdsburg, Jenner, Kenwood, Monte Rio, Occidental, Penn Grove, Petaluma, Rio Nido, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma, Sea Ranch, Stewarts Point Valley Ford, Villa Grande and Windsor.

"The sole intent of a PSPS is to prevent a catastrophic wildfire sparked by electrical equipment during extreme weather events," PG&E officials said in a news release Tuesday.

"We know that winds generally above 45 mph are known to cause damage to the lower-voltage distribution system and winds above 50 mph are known to cause damage to higher-voltage transmission equipment."

As of 1 p.m., approximately 500,000 customers in Northern California were without electric service as a result of the shutoff. Approximately 597,000 customers total in Northern and Southern Sierra, North Bay, Bay Area, Santa Cruz mountains, North Coast and Kern County will ultimately be affected by the shutoff, according to PG&E.

The shutoff is one of at least three endured by Sonoma County since Oct. 9, and comes as more than 100,000 residents remain evacuated from the Kincade Fire. It also comes as some in Sonoma County are still without power from a shutoff that started last Wednesday when the Kincade Fire broke out in northeastern Sonoma County.

"Approximately 400,000 customers who were originally impacted by the Oct. 26 PSPS event remain without service as part of the subsequent Oct. 29 event," PG&E officials said Tuesday. "The dynamic and changing weather conditions and high fire risk means that some customers who are currently out of power from the Oct. 26 event will remain out throughout the duration of the Oct. 29 event. PG&E continues to analyze this wind event and the extent of shutoffs."

REBATES

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that PG&E is going to credit customers for the outages related to the Public Safety Power Shutoffs.The governor made the statements at a news conference at 2:15 p.m. in Southern California.

"This is significant because utilities in the past have never credited customers for these disruptions," Newsom said. "We called for rebates and the CEO just communicated with our
staff that they are going to support some credits."

In a statement, PG&E President and CEO Bill Johnson said, "We have carefully considered the Governor's request to provide reimbursement for our customers impacted by the Oct. 9 PSPS, and we have agreed to move forward with a one-time bill credit for customers impacted by that event.

"This is not an industry standard practice, nor approved as part of a tariff, but we believe it is the right thing to do for our customers in this case, given the challenges with our website and call center communications," Johnson said.

In the Oct. 9 event, PG&E's website was frequently unavailable to people trying to find out if they were going to be affected by the PSPS and the call center was overwhelmed.

• ALSO SEE: Power Shutoff Probe: State Agency Eyes PG&E

— Bay City News Service contributed to this report.