Update, 9:50 p.m. PG&E spokeswoman Jacqueline Ratto said power to all customers had been restored by about 9:45 p.m. She had no further information on cause but said “an extensive investigation” would be done to find out what led to the outage.
She confirmed that the first reports of the outage began coming in to PG&E at 6:07 p.m., contrary to her earlier report, which was based on preliminary information.
Update, 8:06 p.m. PG&E spokeswoman Jacqueline Ratto says an underground equipment failure appears to be the cause of Tuesday night’s outage in Berkeley, according to the agency’s preliminary investigation. She confirmed the outage has impacted about 10,000 customers.
Ratto said she did not have the location of that equipment, and asked for patience from customers because the time of restoration is currently unknown. She said multiple outages are affecting customers.
According to the information she had, the outage began at 7:30, though customers began reporting power problems in Berkeley to Berkeleyside as early as 6:17 p.m.
Original story, 7:45 p.m. Residents are reporting widespread power outages downtown and in southeast Berkeley.
According to the PG&E outage map, more than 10,200 people have been affected by what is described online as 14 outages.
Berkeleyside has called PG&E to ask for details.
The Berkeley Police Department is advising motorists to avoid University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way because traffic signals are out, which is causing backups.
According to the PG&E outage map, the cause of the downtown outage is listed as “unknown,” with estimated repair by 9:15 p.m.
A larger outage around the Elmwood area and in Southside Berkeley is scheduled to be fixed by 10:30 p.m. No cause is listed.
Some people lost power as early as about 6:15 p.m., with problems cropping up for others about an hour later. The first report came into Berkeleyside at 6:17 p.m.
According to one report by a reader on Twitter, a manhole blew downtown at about 6:50 p.m., which may have been related to the power troubles. At least one elevator rescue was also reported. That information is not confirmed.
Berkeleyside will update this post when additional information is provided.
See the PG&E outage map for more information, and to sign up for updates.
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