SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco supervisors are calling for a hearing by the board into the massive power outage in the city last month.
Calls for a hearing
What we know:
Supervisor Alan Wong and other lawmakers say residents deserve answers about the outage on December 20, which, at its height, affected about a third of the city.
Wong added that the credits offered by Pacific Gas and Electric are insufficient to cover lost food, wages and many other disruptions. The utility has offered customers and businesses impacted by the Dec. 20 blackout $200 and $2,500 respectively.
Wong in a statement said power was gradually restored during the initial outage, but that periodic outages continued for several days and that full restoration was achieved on Dec. 23.
“This was not a minor inconvenience,” said Sup. Wong. “Families lost heat in the middle of winter. Seniors were stranded in their homes. One of my constituents, a 95-year-old man who relies on a ventilator, had to be rushed to the hospital at 2 a.m. People watched their phones die, worried they would lose their only connection to 911.”
Wong’s office had sent the utility a letter after previous outages on Dec. 7 and Dec. 10, regarding the utility’s lack of reliability. The letter called the frequency of the outages unacceptable.
PG&E agreed with Wong’s office’s characterization of service specific to the Sunset District and met with the supervisor.
Despite this development, the root cause of the outage on Dec. 20, that impacted some 130,000 residents citywide, was due to a substation fire near Mission and 8th streets. That fire remains under investigation.
Wong thanked fellow supervisors Bilal Mahmood, Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, and Myrna Melgar for co-sponsoring his request. The boardmembers have asked board President Rafael Mandelman to refer their request to the appropriate committee.
Wong is separately submitting a letter of inquiry to the SF Public Utilities Commission requesting an analysis of cost and implementation of what it would take for San Francisco to have its own publicly-owned electrical grid.
The other side:
A PG&E spokesperson addressed the board on Tuesday, asking for the hearing to be scheduled after they get results of an independent investigation.
“We have hired an independent investigator company named Exponent to conduct a root-cause investigation. We are pushing for it to be completed as soon as possible with preliminary results by February which we will share with the city,” said Sarah Yoell with PG&E government affairs. “We are proud of our ongoing investments to serve San Francisco.”
Yoell assured the utility would be transparent with whatever they find.
PG&E added that they have met all state requirements and that they have a current Safety Certificate approved by OEIS (Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety).
Loss of inventory
Abdul Alomari, co-owner of Ember Grill in the Tenderloin, said his business lost electricity during the massive outage.
“It’s not just me. Across the street, all these restaurants here, nearby businesses. It hurst a lot of people. I’m just one small voice from so many people here that got hurt,” said Alomari.
He plans to attend the PG&E hearing and said Tenderloin merchants already have a tough time.
“Less people come here, the Tenderloin, Every single bit of help helps. It doesn’t help that every three months we get a power outage for four hours and we lose business,” said Alomari.
He said compensation from PG&E alone is not the answer. He wants reliability and stability.
“That’s only short time if we have things like this happen all the time, eventually it’ll off set what we get,” Alomari said.
The Source: PG&E statement, interviews with the supervisors, interview with a restaurant owner and original reporting by Amber Lee.
