A STRING OF BLACKOUTS has hit the Bay Area in recent months, but residents of one West San Jose community suspect they’ve had it worse than most. Now they’re calling for Pacific Gas and Electric to address what they said are longstanding grid reliability issues in their neighborhood.
Residents of Mossbrook Circle — a U-shaped residential street lined with Eichler homes near the border with Campbell — told San José Spotlight of their growing frustration after a year that seemed to deliver one power outage after another to their tiny suburban enclave.
“The year 2025 was just extraordinarily high in terms of outages,” Cyrus Shahriari, who has been rallying the neighborhood to advocate for improvements, told San José Spotlight.
Without any definitive answers, residents have been left to speculate why homes on Mossbrook Circle and a few nearby blocks in the West Moreland neighborhood have been struck by roughly two-dozen outage events — lasting a few seconds to multiple hours — over the past year, according to an outage record tabulated by a Mossbrook resident. Peaking their suspicions that something is amiss on their local energy grid, Mossbrook residents note that homes standing just a block or two away often have the lights on even when theirs are out.
“Mossbrook Avenue always seems to keep the power,” Shahriari said. “We’re trying to understand why.”
Resident frustration over the longstanding issue seems to have surged to new heights in recent weeks, after a Christmas Eve storm triggered rolling blackouts in the area that lasted for days.
Shahriari and others are asking PG&E to provide answers and to carry out grid upgrades that might put an end to the outages. The problem has caused inconveniences and considerable anxiety for people who rely on electrically-powered medical devices, residents said.
In response, PG&E spokesperson Stephanie Magallon said most of the reported outages resulted from “several distinct and unrelated events,” including extreme weather and fallen trees.
“We will continue to review the recent outage data to see what improvements can be made to further support Mossbrook Circle neighborhood,” Magallon told San José Spotlight.
Residents living along Mossbrook Circle are asking PG&E to upgrade the power lines that traverse their neighborhood atop towering wooden utility poles. (Keith Menconi/San José Spotlight)
Residents said frequent power outages have been a longstanding problem in the neighborhood, which is crisscrossed by power lines held up by wooden utility poles. However, they seem to have gotten worse over the past two years.
While PG&E does not typically release historic outage records for individual homes, resident Bill Bumgarner compiled his own using his home’s battery backup system, which automatically records all power outages.
According to his tabulation, his home experienced 24 outages in 2025, adding up to 55 total hours without power.
The rolling blackouts around Christmas — made worse by a PG&E substation fire in Saratoga — left Bumgarner’s home without power for 21 hours over a three-day period. The same equipment failure led to blackouts for thousands of others as well in the West Valley.
In addition, Bumgarner’s records show power outages striking his home in July, August and September, all lasting seven hours or more. PG&E blamed the July and August outages on vegetation-related problems. Another 15 brief “blip” outages lasting a few seconds to a few minutes also occurred over the year, the records show.
‘An epidemic of pole failures’
Meanwhile, the new year brought yet another major blackout to the neighborhood. Two power outages occurred Jan. 12, triggered when a falling tree brought down power lines.
“It seems when one critical point fails, it’s our block that goes offline,” Shahriari said.
The residents point to overgrown trees and aging utility equipment as possible culprits for the outages.
Mossbrook Circle resident Daniel Rosenberg said he’s seen utility poles near his home deteriorate to the point that they were rotting and leaning to one side before being replaced.
“There’s just an epidemic of pole failures,” Rosenberg told San José Spotlight.
PG&E officials said the utility carries out regular vegetation inspections and tree‑clearing work in the area. A company representative told San José Spotlight it increased reliability investments in San Jose by 60% last year and is planning hundreds of new upgrade projects over the coming year.
One such project in San Jose’s Almaden Valley saw the utility relocate 6,500 feet of power lines underground. PG&E is planning similar work throughout the city, the official said.
The San Jose city manager’s office deferred questions to PG&E.
Meanwhile, Councilmember Rosemary Kamei, whose district includes Mossbrook Circle, said her office is looking into the outage complaints.
“The District 1 office has received a single complaint regarding this concern and is in communication with both city of San Jose staff and PG&E to investigate the issue and examine options,” Kamei told San José Spotlight.
In the meantime, Mossbrook Circle residents’ patience is wearing thin with the flickering lights in their neighborhood.
“How can they look at that and allow that situation to continue?” Bumgarner told San José Spotlight. “That seems negligent.”
Contact Keith Menconi at keith@sanjosespotlight.com or @KeithMenconi on X.