Update: Power restored to North County customers
Update posted Sept. 10, 5 p.m.
–PG&E customers who were without power overnight last night had their electricity restored by noon today.
Crews are working to safely restore power in new outages Friday, including about 50 customers in San Luis Obispo in the vicinity of Murray Avenue and Serrano Drive; approximately 30 customers in Cayucos; and 17 customers in Santa Maria near East Main Street and Augusta Avenue.
Update posted Sept. 10, 6 a.m.
–As of 6 p.m. last night, for the area west of Templeton and Lake Nacimiento which started shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday night, PG&E has safely restored power to all but about 280 customers. The original number was more than 950 customers, according to PG&E’s Principal Marketing and Communications Representative Mark Mesesan. Mesesan says that they are close to completing all required line inspection work on that circuit, which will allow the company to restore power to the remaining impacted customers. They still have not identified a cause.
For the two outages in the south Atascadero/Santa Margarita area related to Thursday’s car versus pole accident at Highway 58 and Pozo Road, there are still more than 2,050 customers without power as they continue to work to complete aerial and ground inspections of the circuit. These inspections are required due to high wildfire risk.
As of Friday morning, the PG&E outage map was only showing outages East of Santa Margarita impacting 355 customers. Click here to view the outage map.
Original story posted Sept. 9, 3 p.m.
Entire circuit must be inspected due to its location in a high wildfire threat area
–There are currently three significant power outages impacting a total of nearly 2,800 PG&E customers in the Atascadero/Santa Margarita area, according to PG&E’s Principal Marketing and Communications Representative Mark Mesesan.
Since shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday, nearly 800 PG&E customers in northern San Luis Obispo County have been impacted by an electrical outage. The general affected area is west of Templeton and Highway 101, from just south of Highway 46, north to Lake Nacimiento.
“We have not yet identified the cause, but PG&E has crews in the area and a helicopter in the air, inspecting the circuit, which we could not do during nighttime hours,” said Mesesan. “With safety being PG&E’s most important responsibility, the entire circuit must be inspected due to its location in a high wildfire threat area.”
Crews have begun to safely restore power to customers in sections as they complete line inspections section by section. These inspections are required due to the drought-intensified conditions, including extremely dry fuel conditions and the receptivity of those fuels to ignite and spread quickly, even without major winds, Mesesan said.
“We have been advising our customers that this additional safety step can lead to more frequent and potentially longer outages at the local level, but it is an important step to keep PG&E’s customers and communities safe.”
At shortly after 11 a.m. today, more than 1,650 PG&E customers in the Atascadero/Santa Margarita area lost power due to an electrical outage, which was followed by another outage at about 1:30 p.m., affecting about 400 customers, to the east and south of Santa Margarita.
These outages were caused by damage to PG&E equipment related to a vehicular collision with a power pole, with wires down, at or near the intersection of Highway 58 and Pozo Road.
Affected PG&E customers generally are located from West Pozo Road in the Santa Margarita area on the south end, north to San Diego Road, west of Highway 101; and Halcyon Road, east of Highway 101 on the south side of Atascadero.
The circuit for this outage also lay within a high fire threat area, so again, any equipment repairs will have to be completed along with a 100-percent line inspection of the affected circuit before PG&E can safely restore power to affected customers.
Here are downed wire safety recommendations for customers and the public:
- Treat all low hanging and downed power lines as if they are energized and extremely dangerous.
- Keep yourself, children, other people and pets away from them.
- Be aware of trees, pools of water and other objects that may be in contact with downed power lines.
- If customers see damaged power lines and electric equipment, they should call 911, and then notify PG&E at 1-800-743-5002.
For more information about outages, visit m.pge.com/#outages
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