Power restored in Lake, Napa counties after intentional outages

PG&E restored power Tuesday to all remaining customers in Lake and Napa counties who were affected by the utility’s intentional outages rolled out Sunday in a bid to curb wildfire risk amid windy, warm and dry conditions.

Early in the evening, less than 200 customers across the two counties were still without power, but they had all been restored by about 7 p.m., according to a PG&E spokeswoman.

The 415 Sonoma County customers affected in the planned outage were back online Monday night.

At the height of PG&E’s proactive outages, some 17,500 customers in Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties were in the dark.

A total of about 60,000 people were affected across the state, and less than 650 outside the greater North Bay still had no power Tuesday night, said Jennifer Robison, a spokeswoman for the utility.

Sunday marked the first time PG&E shut down power during a period of extremely high fire danger. The utility adopted the approach following last year’s historic Northern California wildfires, 17 of which have been attributed to PG&E power equipment failures, according to state investigators.

But some residents and community leaders have faulted PG&E for not communicating well enough about the planned outages, especially in Lake County, which bore the brunt of the blackouts.

Members of the Lake County Board of Supervisors had “sharp criticism” for a PG&E representative who appeared before them Tuesday, said Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin. The county is planning a more detailed examination of the intentional outages next week, he said.

Martin said PG&E should use proactive outages as a last resort to prevent wildfires but questioned whether the utility had effectively shown it had exhausted all other efforts, including proper vegetation management.

“People feel very helpless and very vulnerable, especially the people that depend on it for medical reasons and businesses that rely on it to make a living,” he said.

Martin said PG&E had been a good partner with Lake County during past disasters, so he fully expects that, should the utility choose to shut off power again, “it will roll out in a better manner.”