San Francisco Crippled by Widespread Power Outages on Busy Holiday Shopping Weekend
(Bloomberg) -- San Francisco got most of its power back after the city was hit by a widespread outage Saturday that left thousands of homes and businesses in the dark, closing stores and disrupting transit during the busy holiday shopping period.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company said in a statement on X that its crew restored about 90,000 customers by 9 p.m. Saturday, with the remaining 40,000 expected to get power back overnight.
“We will continue working through the night and as we complete necessary safety inspections, we will restore more customers,” the utility wrote. It added that “there were no injuries to coworkers or the public.”
A series of outages began in the morning in the western part of the city and spread throughout the day, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. An afternoon fire inside a PG&E substation was responsible for at least part of the outages, the paper wrote, citing local fire officials.
The outages caused widespread disruption on local transit systems and traffic lights. The Bay Area Rapid Transit updated its website, saying that the Powell St. station and Civic Center station have reopened.
“If you’re able, please stay inside and take care of one another,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie wrote on X.
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