Just as electricity returns, Pacific Gas and Electric is warning it might go away again starting this morning.
With the national weather service warning intensely dry north winds will resume this morning, PG&E is preparing to cut power across much of the same areas recently impacted.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing another severe and widespread wind event in the forecast.” PG&E spokesman Denny Boyles said. “The good news is, it’s a shorter duration event.”
A Red Flag warning for extreme fire danger takes effect at 8 this morning for much of Northern California, continuing until four o’clock Wednesday.
Boyles said the outage will touch 29 counties and affect 605,000 households. Boyles said PG&E has hired 1,000 additional contract workers to help inspect its lines, hopefully enabling the company to restore service more quickly.
Despite several major fires in Southern California and wine country, Calfire says it is doing everything it can to prepare fast responses wherever a fire breaks out.
“From the Oregon border all the way to Mexico, the entire State of California has brought on additional firefighters, staffed up extra fire engines, bulldozers, hand crews, all of that equipment has been staffed up for these winds. Calfire Spokesman Robert Foxworthy said.
Foxworthy said that despite cooler temperatures, extreme low humidity is a major concern.
About two thirds of the nearly one million households that endured a weekend without electricity were still waiting for their power to return late yesterday afternoon.
Boyles said winds this weekend caused considerable damage, with 75 incidents in the north valley alone, compared with 100 throughout the company’s vast territory following the previous incident.