ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) — Officials with PG&E said Monday that power has been restored to all of the 54,000 customers impacted by Sunday’s outage.
“We continue to work safely and as quickly as possible to restore customers impacted by yesterday’s outage in Oakland,” read a tweet from a PG&E spokesperson. “We expect to restore all impacted customers by 2:00 p.m. today.”
The power was restored Sunday afternoon at Oakland International Airport and the flights were free to come and go, but around 8,500 people in the East Bay were still without power.
The safety of our customers and coworkers is our most important responsibility. We continue working to restore customers in Oakland who experienced a power outage yesterday. Initially 54,000 customers were impacted by the outage which was caused by equipment damage at approximately 2 p.m. Sunday. We worked closely with fire officials to make the situation safe, and approximately 45,500 customers were restored as of 9:00 pm last night. Our crews worked through the night to assess and complete repairs to damaged equipment and are working safely and as quickly as possible to restore remaining customers by 12:00-2:00pm today.
JD Guidi, PG&E spokesperson
This after a “major” power outage impacted more than 50,000 customers across the East Bay Sunday afternoon, and even shut down the Oakland International Airport for a time.
A fire at a PG&E substation transformer led to an outage according to officials with PG&E and the Oakland Fire Department. AMP is working to determine when power will be restored.
OFD Battalion Chief James Bowron says OFD received the call about brown smoke and flames seen inside of the PG&E yard near the intersection of 50th Avenue and Coliseum Way. After fire crews gained access to the site, they found a transformer was on fire. The fire was out by 4 p.m.
KRON On is streaming now
BART said there was no service to the Oakland Airport Connector during the outage. AC Transit provided a bus service on bus #73 between Coliseum station and Oakland International Airport.
The Oakland International Airport lost power just before 1 p.m., airport officials told KRON4. Video from the security line inside of the airport showed the line at a standstill.
PG&E is anticipating the power could be restored to the area by 5:45 p.m. Photos show travelers crowding into hallways and waiting at baggage claim. Power was restored to the airport at 2:50 p.m., according to airport officials.
By 3 p.m., TSA lines started moving again, travelers at the airport tell KRON4. A photo from the security checkpoint shows that at least some of the machines have power again.
At 2:15 p.m. on Sunday, the City of Alameda wrote that the High Street and Fruitvale bridges were both stuck in the up position. Drivers were asked to take a different route.
PG&E shared a statement with KRON4 on the incident.
“The safety of our customers and employees is our most important responsibility. We are aware of the large outage in the Oakland area impacting approximately 50,000 customers. We are currently investigating the details, and will provide more information on the timing of restoration once we have more information.”
On Sunday, Assemblymember Mia Bonta warned drivers to be cautious, as streetlights across the area were also impacted by the outage.
