PG&E Power Outage Impacts 22,500 Residents in San Jose

An estimated 22,500 people lost power in San Jose Saturday night in the Santa Teresa, Alum Rock, Berryessa, Evergreen and Almaden neighborhoods.

City officials anticipated that approximately 98,000 residents would lose power as part of PG&E’s second South Bay power shutoff in response to high winds coupled with low humidity that sparked blazes across the state.

In San Jose, PG&E expects that those fire-inducing weather conditions will end around 8am Monday. They expect to turn the power back on within 48 hours of that time.

At a Sunday morning press conference, Deputy City Manager Kip Harkness said the impact to San Jose is “relatively small.”

“The major issues are in Sonoma County with the Kincade Fire,” he said. “We have provided support from our fire department to them and support from our emergency management function to them and will continue to support them as requested throughout the duration of the fire.”

As of Sunday morning, the Kincade fire has burned 30,000 acres and is only 10 percent contained, according to CAL Fire. They expect to have the fire under control by Nov. 7.

In San Jose, officials say five traffic signals are out at the following intersections:

  • Monterey Road and Live Oak Avenue
  • Almaden Expressway and O’Grady Drive
  • Almaden Expressway and Harry Road
  • Almaden Expressway and Rajkovich Way
  • Via Valiente and Bret Harte Drive

“Approach intersections with caution,” San Jose Vice Mayor Chappie Jones reminded drivers. “Treat dark traffic signals as all ways stops.”

The city will open four community resource centers where residents will have access to information, charging stations, water, light snacks and Spanish and Vietnamese interpretation. The four resource centers—located in the Berryessa, Evergreen, Camden and Southside areas—will stay open from noon to 7pm on Sunday and resume normal business hours on Monday.

PG&E opened its own resource center at 8am today at the East Valley Family YMCA  and will remain open until 8pm. Residents will have access to restrooms, bottled water, charging stations and air-conditioning at the facility

As the temperatures drop this week, Harkness said that the city is also considering opening overnight warming locations for those who have lost their power.

5 Comments

  1. What is the city doing to clean up flammable brush in over grown areas so PG&E doesn’t have to shut down power.
    Hire the homeless. It would be much less expensive than buying PG&E lines and trying to run a utility company.

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