SACRAMENTO, Calif — 1 p.m. update:
PG&E is beginning to inspect its power lines, roughly 3,915 miles worth, that were de-energized during this past weekend's Public Safety Power Shutoff event.
Original story
California’s largest electric utility has temporarily shut off power to thousands of residents to prevent wildfires sparked by the company's electrical equipment.
PG&E began shutting off power Sunday in portions of four Northern California counties, about 11,000 customers in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties. Another 54,000 customers in 12 more counties were affected by Sunday night. About 15 residents in Kern County had their power shut off Monday morning.
People living in impacted counties can check if they will have their power shut off by looking up their address on PG&E's website.
In total, just over 65,000 customers are to be affected. Over 4,000 customers affected have special energy needs due to their medical condition. The electric company hopes to have power restored by Monday evening.
PG&E Incident Commander Mark Quinlan says the initial plan was to temporarily cut service to 89,000 customers, but monitoring enabled a reduction of 27%.
For a full list of areas impacted, click HERE.
PG&E said the shutoffs were based on forecasts of widespread, severely dry conditions and strong, gusty winds.
The National Weather Service has enacted a Red Flag Warning for most of Northern California. These conditions are expected to continue through Monday morning in most locations.
When weather conditions improve PG&E plans to inspect its lines and then start to turn power back on.
The thousands of people across 16 counties are expected to be without power until Monday evening.
- Alpine County: 573 customers, 6 Medical Baseline
- Amador County: 5,466 customers, 400 Medical Baseline
- Butte County: 11,339 customers, 961 Medical Baseline
- Calaveras County: 5,132 customers, 219 Medical Baseline
- El Dorado County: 27,286 customers, 1,796 Medical Baseline
- Kern County: 15 customers, 0 Medical Baseline
- Lake County: 55 customers, 2 Medical Baseline
- Napa County: 288 customers, 8 Medical Baseline
- Nevada County: 2,887 customers, 166 Medical Baseline
- Placer County: 4,380 customers, 281 Medical Baseline
- Plumas County: 785 customers, 24 Medical Baseline
- Shasta County: 2,815 customers, 240 Medical Baseline
- Sierra County: 1,099 customers, 22 Medical Baseline
- Sonoma County: 2 customers, 0 Medical Baseline
- Tehama County: 1,223 customers, 58 Medical Baseline
- Yuba County: 1,891 customers, 152 Medical Baseline
- Total: 65,237 customers, 4,335 Medical Baseline
Cal Fire may request that PG&E shut off power for customers in addition to the planned shutoff. PG&E said the requested shutoff from Cal Fire would be to protect firefighters in active fire areas.
PG&E said it is working to improve its PSPS program by making events smaller in size, shorter in length and smarter for our customers.
PG&E said it opened 27 outdoor, open-air Community Resource Centers in every county where a shutoff is occurring. These centers will be open to people affected by the shutoff and will provide restrooms, snacks and other resources.