“There was definitely lightning in the area last night,” said Scott Rowe, National Weather Service (NWS) senior service hydrologist, who was at work when a round of thunderstorms hit the foothills on Aug. 19 roughly between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Originally impacting 3,763 customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on Aug. 19 in the 9 o’clock hour on Friday evening, power along the Highway 4 corridor was lost and restored multiple times over the weekend during the first known tropical storm warning that has been issued by the Hurricane Center for the West Coast.
While Calaveras County was not included in the area where the warning was issued, the county did feel the effects of the storm.
On Saturday, Aug. 19, at 9:03 p.m., the power went out for 1,749 customers in Murphys. Electricity was restored to these customers by 8 a.m. Aug. 20, six hours ahead of the original estimate made for restoration of power by PG&E.
In Arnold and Dorrington, 2,014 customers lost power at 9:11 p.m. on Aug. 19; PG&E restored power to these customers by 8 p.m., Aug. 20. PG&E Public Information Officer JD Guidi said, “PG&E has multiple personnel working as safely and quickly as possible to get power restored.”
At 3 p.m. on Aug. 20, there were 271 customers without power in Murphys; 177 in Douglas Flat; 120 in Sheep Ranch; 17 in Avery; and three in Angels Camp.
On Sunday evening, Aug. 20, at 7:17 p.m., 1,850 customers in the Murphys area lost power again. And though power was restored for all but 278 of these customers by 10 p.m. on Sunday night, PG&E had not identified a cause. As of 11 p.m. Aug. 20, PG&E estimates power will be restored for these 278 customers at 2 p.m. Aug. 21.
The hum of generators could be heard in the Rocky Hill neighborhood of Murphys on Sunday evening. Guidi said, “If customers are using a generator, use one installed by a licensed electrician.”
“Customers can find power outage safety tips at PGE.com and can always track outages online at our outage map,” said Guidi.
PG&E’s outage map can be found at pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter/. There, customers can enter their service address to report an outage or obtain detailed up-to-date information about the power outage they are experiencing. Guidi also directed customers to the site’s outage map as a simple way to sign up for outage alerts texts by phone. Customers may choose whether they’d like to receive notifications between the hours of 8 a.m and 9 p.m. or 24 hours a day, according to PGE.com.
This is a single current outage that has impacted multiple areas. The cause is still under investigation.
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