USA, San Francisco: San Francisco began seeing power restored on night of 20 December after a widespread outage left around 130,000 customers, nearly 30 % of the city, in the dark.
PG&E’s online status showed 95,280 customers without power at 8:50 p.m., dropping to 23 % of affected users. By 9:45 p.m., the utility reported that 70 % of its customers had electricity restored. Mayor Daniel Lurie confirmed that residents were seeing service return, with further restorations expected around midnight.
By 21 December in the morning, PG&E had brought power back to 110,000 customers, with roughly 20,000 still offline, mostly in the Presidio, Richmond District, Golden Gate Park, and small sections of downtown.
The outages began on 20 December at 9:40 a.m. in the Inner Sunset neighbourhood, impacting about 14,700 customers. By 10:10 a.m., the blackout had spread to 25,000 more in the Richmond District, Presidio, Golden Gate Park, Inner Sunset, and near the Civic Center. Later, scattered outages affected parts of the Tenderloin, Mission District, Western Addition, Chase Center, and downtown.
Officials warned the public not to call 911 unless there was a life-threatening emergency and urged residents to avoid streets where traffic signals were out. The problem was traced to a substation at 8th Street and Mission Street in the South of Market area, where a fire was reported around 2:14 p.m.
District supervisors highlighted the timing of the outage, noting its impact on shopping, events, and transit. BART and Muni services were disrupted, with stations temporarily closed and limited shuttle service in operation. The outage also caused gridlock downtown and forced some business closures, including a Walgreens on Market Street. PG&E continues to investigate the cause of the substation fire.
Source: ABC7 News
