as of Thursday afternoon.<\/a><\/p>\nPG&E described the shutoffs as among its largest in years. The utility opened resource centers where customers could access charging stations and Wi-Fi, and distributed care packages to people affected by the outages.<\/p>\n
While PG&E says the shutoffs are intended to prevent wildfires, some residents questioned why their electricity was turned off when conditions appeared calm.<\/p>\n
“We got bright skies. There is no visible thing that’s telling me it’s related to weather,” said Tracy Brooks, who lives in Hathaway Pines in Calaveras County.<\/p>\n
A PG&E spokesperson said conditions at a customer’s home do not necessarily reflect the weather along the power lines supplying that location.<\/p>\n
“Just because you may not be experiencing, you know, that type of weather where you are, does not mean the line that services you does not run through a high fire threat area,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
PG&E said the weather system driving the shutoffs could persist through Saturday. However, the utility said customers would not necessarily remain without power for the entire period.<\/p>\n
Crews must inspect power lines before restoring electricity, meaning power could return to some customers before others as inspections are completed.<\/p>\n
“More people are prepared this year.”<\/p>\n
In the Calaveras County town of Arnold, the outages forced some businesses to close, with signs posted in windows explaining they had no power.<\/p>\n
For some residents, generators have become an important backup.<\/p>\n
“I lived here a lot of years without one, but I have one now,” Arnold resident Kimberly Bertolino said.<\/p>\n
Bertolino said more people in the retirement-heavy community have prepared for outages since a major storm last year.<\/p>\n
“It’s a big retirement area. Yeah, more since that big storm we had last year. More people are prepared this year,” she said.<\/p>\n
Others are finding it more difficult to adjust. Brooks said losing electricity also means losing access to everyday conveniences.<\/p>\n
“Am I adaptable? Yeah, in some sense, but I don’t do camping and that kind of thing. You don’t have internet and you don’t have entertainment like television,” Brooks said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday afternoon, a generator fire in Arnold brought firefighting aircraft overhead.<\/p>\n
Arnold resident Alice Stroh said crews responded quickly.<\/p>\n
“I mean, we had a lot of planes and helicopters, and they got that out really quick,” Stroh said.<\/p>\n
Bertolino said she understands the need for the precautions, even if she questions the timing.<\/p>\n
“They might have shut it a little early, but I’d rather not have a fire,” she said.<\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 70,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers across California are without power as the company carried out public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[10139,3643,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-497445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-pacific-gas-and-electric-company","tag-power-outage","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}