Nearly 12K Bay Area customers still waiting for power to be restored

Thousands of Bay Area residents are still without power Monday amid weather-related outages and planned shutoffs as strong winds continue to sweep through the region. 

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As of 12 p.m., 11,824 customers are without power, Tamar Sarkissian, a spokesperson for PG&E, told SFGATE. Of those customers, the North Bay (3,888), East Bay (3,227) and South Bay (4,226) have the most outages in the Bay Area. 

There are only 348 outages reported in the Peninsula and 135 in San Francisco. 

Though the majority of the outages are because of weather issues, Sarkissian said some are because of the planned shutoffs and power should be restored by the evening. PG&E’s first major public safety power shutoffs of the Bay Area fire season began Sunday, SFGATE previously reported.

As of Monday morning, 685 outages were tied to planned power shutoffs, according to Sarkissian.

Several other California counties beyond the Bay Area were also part of the planned shutoff event, including Colusa, Fresno, Glenn, Lake, Merced, San Benito, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tehama and Yolo counties. In total, the utility shut off power for 4,700 customers since Sunday. 

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PG&E issued an “all-clear” on Monday morning for parts of Alameda, Colusa, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, San Benito, Yolo and Fresno counties, meaning high winds had eased and crews were able to start inspecting equipment ahead of restoring power.

No public safety shutoffs are planned in the next seven days, according to PG&E.

Over the weekend, several small fires erupted throughout the Bay Area, including the Middle Fire in Sonoma County near Middle Ridge Road. The elevated fire weather threat is in effect through Monday, according to the National Weather Service, because the relative humidity is between 10 and 25% and wind gusts are up to 50 mph in the interior Bay Area and Central Coast. The highest wind gust hit 86 mph in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Sunday night,according to the National Weather Service.

Residents can check the status of their power on PG&E’s website.