News

Updated 11:05 a.m. on 10/23

Electricity service will be severed in the Sierra Nevada foothills at around 2 p.m. Tuesday as Pacific Gas and Electric Company attempts to reduce the risk that its equipment will cause another catastrophic wildfire.

The voluntary blackout is expected to hit about 179,000 customers across 17 counties including Alpine,  Butte, Lake, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra, Tehama and Yuba. 

More bad news for PG&E customers. Another disruption could start tomorrow.  

“We expect a potential public safety power shutoff to impact up to 209,000 customers across the 15 counties.” PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado said.

The number of actualpeople impacted would be about three times that figure, as each customer covers a full household.

From Alderpoint to Yuba City, hundreds of thousands of PG&E customers are managing without electricity across Northern California today as the company conducts a pre-emptive blackout aimed at preventing its equipment from sparking another wildfire.

The company began turning off the electricity to half a million households shortly after midnight due to high winds.

Customers of Redding’s Municipal Utility and other systems are not generally affected.

Planned PG&E power outages across northern California Wednesday and Thursday will have sporadic effects on NSPR service. As of Wednesday morning, because of cuts to power on Shasta Bally in Redding, NSPR's transmitters in Redding, Burney, and Dunsmuir are off the air. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Late night drivers using Northbound Interstate 5 in southern Shasta County should expect significant disruption to their normal routines next week. 

All northbound lanes will be closed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from midnight until 5 a.m. as highway widening work continues.

Workers replacing a railroad overpass will be lifting 150 foot long, 164,000 pound girders into place using cranes and other heavy equipment. Traffic will be detoured near Anderson for about three miles.

A local non-profit developer received a bit more than half a million dollars in grants earlier this week to speed affordable housing production in the region in the Camp Fire’s wake.

Community Housing Improvement Program or CHIP, which is building or about to break ground on affordable subdivisions in Cottonwood, Corning, Orland, Biggs and Williams, received $560,000 from the North Valley Community Foundation’s Butte Strong Fund. 

Two families of toxic industrial chemicals have shown up in the sources of water local utilities deliver to area households, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington DC-based organization.

President Trump is holding a press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, marking 100 years of diplomatic relations between the countries. The remarks come amid an open impeachment inquiry into the U.S. president. Tune in at 11 a.m.