CALIFORNIA, USA — Following strong snowstorms in Northern California, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) is reporting that about 50,000 Sierra division customers were still without power Thursday.
In response to a series of winter storms that devastated parts of the state in December, Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in several counties across the state to support storm response efforts. The governor's declaration includes Alameda, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Humboldt, Lake, Los Angeles, Marin, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Sierra, and Yuba counties. The disaster declaration refers to the winter storms from Dec. 10, 16, and 21.
The announcement comes as PG&E says customers are still being impacted by current outages in the Sierra division, which includes El Dorado, Nevada, Placer and Sierra counties. Other areas currently impacted by outages include Amador and Calaveras counties.
In a Facebook post, the Foresthill Fire Protection District said PG&E is bringing in private contractors and out-of-state electrical providers to assist with repairs in the area.
"Unfortunately, many areas of the divide have suffered extensive damage to the power grid and will require many days to repair. Residents without power should plan for an extended outage lasting through the weekend," the post reads.
Outage impact by county
- Nevada County:15,400
- El Dorado County: 13,000
- Placer County: 6,700
- Amador County: 4,500
- Sierra County: 400
- Calaveras County: 3,200
PG&E said they expect a future storm to come and bring more snow and "challenges for the PG&E crews that are out in full force" working to restore power.
"We made progress on Tuesday, then heavy snow came in again on Wednesday and hampered some of the progress we made. It's a clear day today, crews are out in full force making assessments," Megan McFarland, spokesperson for PG&E, told ABC10.
Viewers have been reaching out to ABC10, saying they've gotten notifications from PG&E that their power could be restored as late as Jan. 10, 2022. McFarland previously told ABC10 estimated times of restoration have been going out to customers so they have an understanding of what to expect. But its not clear when exactly power will be restored. She said that downed trees, unplowed roads and other hazards are slowing down efforts to get into the impacted areas to make repairs.
"All these things together are resulting in longer estimated times of restoration," McFarland said.
After impacts from the December winter storms and PG&E outage, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Calaveras and Amador counties have declared local emergencies.
Resources
- To find out if your address is included in these outages, visit: pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter
- To report an outage, visit: pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter/report
View PG&E's outage map for the latest update:
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