PG&E reaching out to customers and crews are working round the clock to restore power

PG&E crews are working round the clock to restore power safely and as quickly as possible to the approx. 500 customers in Humboldt County who are experiencing an extended outage due to the prolonged Atmospheric River Storm (that’s down from 6,100 last night).  

We understand the hardships going without power has had on our customers.  We are aware the hardship that extended outages represent and we appreciate the patience of our customers.

PG&E has been, and will continue to reach out to every customer today who is still without power due to storm-related outages. This includes automated phone calls with updated information as well as through other channels. In areas with damaged infrastructure and access issues, restoration will extend into tonight, tomorrow and possibly through Sunday.  PG&E will share an estimated time of restoration (ETOR) for all customers in areas where damage assessment has been completed. The remaining customers will be contacted to let them know when we expect to have a troubleman or inspector in their area to assess the damage. So they are aware of when we’ll be in their area.

Customers can call PG&E at (800) 743-5002 for additional information. Or visit www.pge.com/outages.

Damage from wind, heavy rains and snow, and access issues due to roads blocked by trees, debris and snow, is most severe in some locations.  We are utilizing snow cats, off-road vehicles and helicopters to aide in the assessments of damage in the areas with the most access issues.

PG&E has been and will continue to move crews from less-impacted areas into the more impacted locations like Humboldt and Mendocino counties.  For example, several linemen left Santa Rosa this morning to help restore power in Humboldt County today.

Hundreds of PG&E, contractor and mutual-aid electric and vegetation management crews are working around-the-clock to restore service to customers.  More than 450 crews plus another 500 or so troublemen and qualified electrical workers are engaged in assessment and restoration work. They are being supported by thousands of other PG&E employees who are staffing local and regional emergency-response centers, either virtually or in person.

More than 90 percent of residences and businesses that lost power due to strong winds, heavy rains and snow have had their power restored.  PG&E has found approximately 1,500 instances of damage so far where infrastructure needs to be replaced or repaired.  Although damage assessments continue, a preliminary tabulation shows 1417 spans of conductor that need to be replaced or repaired, 439 broken crossarms, 365 broken poles and 307 broken transformers. In all, 3,614 individual system components need to be repaired or replaced.