Update, 2:50 p.m. An equipment failure at PG&E’s El Cerrito substation caused Sunday morning’s major outage, PG&E spokesman J.D. Guidi confirmed at 3 p.m.
Berkeley bore the largest brunt of the outage, with 33,000 customers — out of 50,000 across the East Bay at the start of the 7:35 a.m. event — affected within the city limits. All power was restored by 11:01 a.m., he said.
Guidi said he had no additional information about the equipment failure. He did not know when the last similar-sized outage occurred in the East Bay.
Update, 11:45 a.m.: Power was restored to all affected customers by around 11 a.m. PG&E has not said what caused the outage and has not responded to inquiries from Berkeleyside at this time.
Nearly all customers affected by outage in parts of Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Kensington, Oakland, San Pablo & Richmond have been restored. Crews working safely and quickly as possible to restore all others. Thank you for your patience.
— Pacific Gas & Electric (@PGE4Me) September 29, 2019
Update, 9:30 a.m. Some North Berkeley residents are reporting that their power has been restored. Others in the neighborhood and beyond are still experiencing outages.
PG&E’s outage map continues to report that almost 45,000 customers are affected. Berkeleyside has not been able to reach a PG&E representative.
Original story, 8:21 a.m. It’s not just sunny summer transitioning to a dark fall: nearly all of Berkeley has no power.
According to PG&E’s website, the huge outage began around 7:30 a.m., affecting nearly 45,000 customers in the East Bay by 8:40 a.m. A map shows the outage stretching north to San Pablo, and south into parts of Berkley’s Southside and Elmwood neighborhoods.
Restoration is predicted for 11 a.m.
The Downtown Berkeley BART station is closed.
The PG&E website says no cause has been determined but crews have been assigned to assess the situation.
Berkeley police have put flares at some intersections where the stoplights are down.
“Traffic signals are non-functioning.
Stop lights not working in parts of North Berkeley along Sacramento and MLK Blvd. Berkeley PD has flares at a couple of intersections. @berkeleyside pic.twitter.com/Me7IH7Nofa
— G Morishige (@gmorishige) September 29, 2019
This is the biggest @PGE4Me outage I can recall in the East Bay. @berkeleyside @JennyTheAuditor pic.twitter.com/hzwuE0y7D8
— Eric Panzer (@ericpanzer) September 29, 2019
Many early-risers Sunday took to Twitter to share that they woke up in the dark.
Todd Wagner noted on the social media site that the outage map “looks like an abstract painting!”
Berkeleyside has reached out to PG&E for more information. Check back for updates.
This story has been updated as more information has become available.
