Bay City News
PG&E customers living in the unincorporated communities just north of Ukiah in Mendocino County have gotten used to power outages lately because in the past week they've experienced three.
According to PG&E, the outages, two of which impacted over 1,600 customers, were caused by two factors: construction equipment and a wildfire burning over 50 miles east of the outage zones.
The first outage was reported Thursday at 10:22 a.m. and impacted 1,697 PG&E customers in Redwood Valley, Calpella, Potter Valley and Laughlin. Power was restored by 1:53 p.m. The second outage was reported at 5:22 p.m. Saturday and impacted a smaller number of PG&E customers, 749, all living in Redwood Valley.
The third outage took place Tuesday, and just like the first outage, it was reported at nearly the same time, 10:26 a.m., and impacted the same number of customers in the same four communities. The outage took place during a National Weather Service heat advisory, which forecast that the areas impacted would hit 107 degrees that afternoon. The lack of power impacted the ability for many impacted residents to use air conditioning or fans to stay cool, or to run well pumps for drinking water. The power was restored by noon.
Frustrated residents took to social media during the outages. "Man, what is wrong with PG&E lines in Redwood Valley?" wrote Keith Walker-Terrell. Another resident, Dave Frick, wrote in a community group on Facebook, "This is getting old. The hottest time of the year to have no power is bull----."
PG&E's online outage website reported the same message for each outage: "There is an unplanned outage in your area. Our team is evaluating the electrical system to identify damaged sections and make necessary repairs in order to safely turn the power back on." No cause was provided on the website.
In an interview, Megan McFarland, a spokesperson for PG&E, said that two of the three outages were connected.
"The first and third outages were caused by a third-party doing construction in the area and the equipment came into contact with overhead lines," she said
McFarland says PG&E was working with the construction company on safety measures to avoid another outage. The location of the construction site was not disclosed.
As for the second outage on Saturday evening, McFarland said it was caused by the Ridge Fire, a wildfire that is currently burning 56 miles east of Redwood Valley in Lake and Colusa counties.
McFarland said the outage was caused when "something came into contact with power lines which triggered our Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings, resulting in our power lines turning off resulting in the outage."
According to PG&E, the Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings are turned on in high fire-risk zones and surrounding areas. If enhanced power lines meet a hazard like a tree branch, the lines will turn off within one-tenth of a second to prevent a fire. McFarland said that PG&E power lines can be hundreds of miles long, hence why Redwood Valley was impacted despite no direct threat from the Ridge Fire.
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