STOCKTON, Calif. — A fire at a pallet company around 3 a.m. caused a massive power outage to a widespread area of downtown Stockton, shutting down businesses and slowing down traffic across the area.
"I had to take a shower in the dark and then I realized 'Oh my God, no blowdryer!' I went to plug it in and [I am] Curly Sue here today," Annette Lucero, a Stockton resident said.
Lucero says she's been without power since 5 a.m. Tuesday. She was one of many turned away from Stockton City Hall on Tuesday as she was just trying to pay her water bill.
"I hope they don't turn my water off because I had a notice and that's why I came to pay the bill and hopefully tomorrow I can come and pay the bill but hopefully I don't get turned off," she said.
PG&E says more than 18,000 people were impacted by the fire's power outage, including a large majority of businesses across the downtown area and many city offices, who chose to send their employees home for the day.
"We recognized that it would not be productive to open city offices as it would not be productive to open them with the power out," Connie Cochran, a spokeswoman for the City of Stockton said.
But the city wasn't alone. The county closed several buildings, including the courthouse and the district attorney's office. The Downtown Transit Center was closed and the Stockton Arena was forced to cancel their big PAW Patrol Live! event for the night.
And as if those long lines at the Stockton DMV couldn't get any longer, they had to close, too.
"Today was my only day to come to the DMV and, yeah, I was hoping to wait in line for like an hour do my thing but the fire kind of stopped that from happening," Ryan Sedy, a Stockton resident said.
The outage also caused quite a bit of confusion for drivers around the downtown area, as most traffic signals were out.
"I am most concerned about the traffic impacts and that people understand to treat each intersection as they need to stop and take turns at each intersection and that has been my primary concern in the downtown area," Cochran said.
As of 4 p.m. on Tuesday, a spokesperson for PG&E says there are still about 2,000 customers without power. They say they are still working on getting them restored by Tuesday night.
The City of Stockton says they plan to reopen all city buildings at regular business hours on Wednesday.
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