TUOLUMNE COUNTY, Calif. — More than twelve hours after losing power, thousands of PG&E customers in Calaveras and Tuolumne Counties remained in the dark Sunday morning.
Over 26,000 people lost power after thunderstorms rolled through parts of Tuolumne and Calaveras counties Saturday night.
According to the PG&E outage map, many of the outages began around 7 p.m. and have various estimated times of restoration.
As of Sunday morning, around 16,700 customers had no electricity.
In a statement Sunday, PG&E said that the weather was to blame for the outages. The power utility added that six helicopters and ground crews are working to assess their infrastructure-- the first step toward restoring power.
"The safety of our customers, communities, and coworkers is our most important responsibility," the statement said. "PG&E crews are working quickly and safely to assess impact to electric infrastructure following the thunderstorms that passed through parts of our service area last night. Initial reports indicate there were around 800 lightning strikes."
Officials did not give an estimated time of restoration, although according to PG&E's map, electricity is expected to be restored in some areas as early as 5:45 p.m. Sunday.
Track the latest outages HERE.
