Update: Power restored to 5,800 in Berkeley after outage

Power outage at Peet's Coffee in North Berkeley. Photo: Colleen Neff — A power outage knocked out electricity at Peet’s Coffee in North Berkeley on Monday. Photo: Colleen Neff

Readers are reporting a power outage in North Berkeley that has knocked out electricity to Peet’s Coffee and a number of homes in the area.

Berkeley residents reported outages around Shattuck Avenue and Delaware Street, Cedar Street and Euclid Avenue, and Milvia Street between Cedar and Virginia. Power at Bonita and Berryman streets, Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Delaware, and Cedar and MLK was also out, readers said.

Scroll down for live updates and more outage information.

Berkeleyside has requested information from PG&E and will update this post when we hear back.

PG&E’s outage map was not showing any sort of widespread outage as of 11:50 a.m.

Emily Thelin tells Berkeleyside on Twitter that the “PG&E power outage line says they’re aware of the outage and expect to have power restored by 2:15 pm.”

Update, 11:55 a.m. Reader Jeremiah Crowe says PG&E has reported that 225 customers are without power. The outage map has not yet been updated, however.

Update, 12:05 p.m. The PG&E outage map now shows that six outages are affecting 6,144 customers in Berkeley. According to the map, a “PG&E assessment crew is en route to the outage.” The affect area appears to stretch from San Pablo Avenue into the Berkeley Hills between Hopkins Street and University Avenue.

Update, 12:15 p.m. The outage map is now reporting more than 6,300 customers are without power due to eight outages, though Berkeleyside has had one report that power is back on. The estimated restoration time posted on the outage map is 2:15 p.m.

Update, 12:30 p.m. According to the outage map, eight outages are now affecting about 3,900 customers, most of whom are east of Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Update, 12:50 p.m. PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado says the cause of Monday’s outage remains under investigation, and that 2,748 customers are still without power.

Tostado said the North Berkeley BART station and two Berkeley schools were without power during the outage, but that electricity is now back at all three locations.

The outage was first reported at 11:36 a.m. Monday, and affected at least 5,864 people, according to the information available to Tostado.

She said that, though the cause of the outage remained under investigation, “there are no safety concerns” and that crews are working to restore power to the remaining customers.

Update, 3:55 p.m. Tostado said, as of 3:20 p.m., power had been restored to all 5,864 PG&E customers in Berkeley who lost power earlier in the day. Crews are still working on repairs and the cause remains under investigation.

Tostado also clarified that PG&E’s public outage map is based on predictive modeling that estimates the overall number of customers without power. She confirmed that the total number of customers who lost power in Berkeley was the one she provided Monday afternoon.

This story was updated throughout the day as additional information became available from PG&E.

Update, Jan. 6, 2:45 p.m. Tostado said PG&E is investigating whether Monday’s outage was weather-related, adding that some type of equipment failure was experienced at a substation. She said repairs have been completed and that the system is now back to normal and operating safely.

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Emilie Raguso