PG&E releases list of California cities, counties on power shut-off watch: Here's what you need to know

Michael Cabanatuan , Alejandro Serrano and J.D. Morris Oct. 7, 2019 Updated: Oct. 8, 2019 9:21 a.m.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Monday that it might preemptively cut power this week to much of Northern California — including parts of almost every Bay Area county — to prevent power lines from sparking wildfires during dry and windy weather.

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The shut-off watch, covering 29 of the state's 58 counties, and affecting more than 600,000 customers, is unprecedented in scope and could grow as forecasts come into focus. Customers in parts of the counties could lose power as soon as Wednesday morning, and the watch extends through Thursday.

Seven of the nine Bay Area counties — all but San Francisco and Marin — were advised of the potential outage, along with the North Coast, the northern parts of the Central Valley and the northern and central Sierra and foothills. The company cited a "potentially widespread, strong and dry wind event."

A shut-off watch precedes a warning of an actual planned outage.

Late Monday night, PG&E released estimates of how many customers in each county could be affected. Among them were 32,613 customers in Alameda; 40,219 in Contra Costa; 32,124 in Napa; 38,123 in Santa Clara; 14,766 in San Mateo; 32,862 in Solano; and 66,289 in Sonoma.

The cities that could go dark included parts of Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward, Richmond, El Cerrito, Pinole, Calistoga, American Canyon, San Mateo and many coastal communities along Highway 1, San Jose, Gilroy, Vallejo, Petaluma and many more.

Farther north, outages could take place in east Chico and throughout the Redding area, among many other parts of Northern California, the map indicates. The potential outages are not limited to fire-prone areas, since PG&E must turn off entire distribution and transmission lines to minimize the risk of wildfires.

PG&E has said the map is intended only to provide a general idea of where shut-offs could occur. The utility recommends using an address look-up tool on its website, www.pge.com, to check specific addresses.

Southern California Edison, which provides power to much of the southern part of the state, issued its own advisory Monday, saying it could cut power this week to about 12,000 customers in Kern, Inyo, Mono, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Dry, warm offshore winds from the northeast — known as Diablo winds — are predicted this week, and the National Weather Service issued a 36-hour fire weather watch starting 5 a.m. Wednesday for the North Bay hills and valleys, the East Bay hills, the Diablo Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Similar watches have been issued through most of Northern California.

Winds are expected to be 20 to 30 mph in the mountains with gusts of at least 55 mph. Gusts up to 30 mph are expected in valleys.

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/PG-E-issues-unprecedented-power-shutoff-watch-for-14498454.php