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NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Pacific Gas and Electric said Wednesday morning that it is moving forward with another public safety power shutoff in portions of the Sierra Foothills and North Bay, as well as small parts of San Mateo and Kern counties due to hot, dry and windy weather expected over the next few days.
The company said the decision was made based on weather conditions that pose a higher risk for damage and sparks on the electric system and rapid wildfire spread.
The shutoff is expected to impact approximately 179,000 customers in 17 counties: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Kern, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Sierra, Sonoma, Tehama and Yuba.
Approximately Lake County 1,895 customers – including 65 medical baseline customers – will be impacted in Cobb, Loch Lomond, Middletown and a small unincorporated area south of Kelseyville.
PG&E said the shutoffs are expected to begin around 2 p.m. in the Sierra Foothills, 3 p.m. in the North Bay counties – including southern Lake County – and approximately 1 a.m. Thursday in affected areas of San Mateo and Kern counties.
Forecasts indicate the peak period of winds should end about noon Thursday in the Sierra Foothills, North Bay and San Mateo County, and around noon Friday in Kern County.
Two community resource centers have been set up in Lake County for the event. They are located at Konocti Vista Casino, 2755 Mission Rancheria Road in Lakeport, and Twin Pine Casino & Hotel, 22223 Highway 29 in Middletown.
Restrooms, bottled water, electronic-device charging and air-conditioned seating for up to 100 will be available at these facilities. They will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday and will remain open for those hours for the duration of the outage.
Once the high winds subside, PG&E will inspect the de-energized lines to ensure they were not damaged during the wind event, and then restore power. PG&E will safely restore power in stages as quickly as possible, with the goal of restoring the vast majority of customers within 48 hours after the weather has passed.
The company said notified potentially impacted customers on Monday, 48 hours prior, and again on Tuesday, 24 hours prior, and will continue to notify, via automated calls, texts and emails – for those customers who’ve provided their contact information to PG&E.
PG&E said customers not impacted by the public safety power shutoff may experience power outages due to the company’s equipment damaged during this wind event; those customers will not be notified in advance.
It is also very possible that customers may be affected by a power shutoff even though they are not experiencing extreme weather conditions in their specific location, PG&E said. This is because the electric system relies on power lines working together to provide electricity across cities, counties and regions.
The company said the decision was made based on weather conditions that pose a higher risk for damage and sparks on the electric system and rapid wildfire spread.
The shutoff is expected to impact approximately 179,000 customers in 17 counties: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Kern, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Sierra, Sonoma, Tehama and Yuba.
Approximately Lake County 1,895 customers – including 65 medical baseline customers – will be impacted in Cobb, Loch Lomond, Middletown and a small unincorporated area south of Kelseyville.
PG&E said the shutoffs are expected to begin around 2 p.m. in the Sierra Foothills, 3 p.m. in the North Bay counties – including southern Lake County – and approximately 1 a.m. Thursday in affected areas of San Mateo and Kern counties.
Forecasts indicate the peak period of winds should end about noon Thursday in the Sierra Foothills, North Bay and San Mateo County, and around noon Friday in Kern County.
Two community resource centers have been set up in Lake County for the event. They are located at Konocti Vista Casino, 2755 Mission Rancheria Road in Lakeport, and Twin Pine Casino & Hotel, 22223 Highway 29 in Middletown.
Restrooms, bottled water, electronic-device charging and air-conditioned seating for up to 100 will be available at these facilities. They will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday and will remain open for those hours for the duration of the outage.
Once the high winds subside, PG&E will inspect the de-energized lines to ensure they were not damaged during the wind event, and then restore power. PG&E will safely restore power in stages as quickly as possible, with the goal of restoring the vast majority of customers within 48 hours after the weather has passed.
The company said notified potentially impacted customers on Monday, 48 hours prior, and again on Tuesday, 24 hours prior, and will continue to notify, via automated calls, texts and emails – for those customers who’ve provided their contact information to PG&E.
PG&E said customers not impacted by the public safety power shutoff may experience power outages due to the company’s equipment damaged during this wind event; those customers will not be notified in advance.
It is also very possible that customers may be affected by a power shutoff even though they are not experiencing extreme weather conditions in their specific location, PG&E said. This is because the electric system relies on power lines working together to provide electricity across cities, counties and regions.
NICE, Calif. – A Tuesday afternoon structure fire near Robinson Rancheria left one person dead.
The fire was first dispatched shortly after 4:15 p.m. Tuesday at a home near the rancheria.
Firefighters arriving at the scene within minutes of dispatch found the stick-built home heavily involved with one person reported to be trapped and firefighters attempting a rescue.
Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio, who served as incident commander, confirmed to Lake County News that the person who was trapped died in the fire.
Ciancio said Northshore Fire was assisted at the incident by Cal Fire, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol.
Also responding was a task force of four engines and a water tender from Mendocino County that have been staged in Lake County this week due to red flag weather conditions and the possibility of a public safety power shutoff, Ciancio said.
He said he had no idea what started the fire. “It’s under investigation.”
Investigators were called to the scene on Tuesday evening to try to determine the cause, Ciancio said. “The investigation’s probably going to take awhile.”
Ciancio said fire personnel would probably be on scene all night.
“We have to secure the scene for preservation of any evidence in case there was a crime. At this point, we don’t think so,” he said.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The fire was first dispatched shortly after 4:15 p.m. Tuesday at a home near the rancheria.
Firefighters arriving at the scene within minutes of dispatch found the stick-built home heavily involved with one person reported to be trapped and firefighters attempting a rescue.
Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio, who served as incident commander, confirmed to Lake County News that the person who was trapped died in the fire.
Ciancio said Northshore Fire was assisted at the incident by Cal Fire, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol.
Also responding was a task force of four engines and a water tender from Mendocino County that have been staged in Lake County this week due to red flag weather conditions and the possibility of a public safety power shutoff, Ciancio said.
He said he had no idea what started the fire. “It’s under investigation.”
Investigators were called to the scene on Tuesday evening to try to determine the cause, Ciancio said. “The investigation’s probably going to take awhile.”
Ciancio said fire personnel would probably be on scene all night.
“We have to secure the scene for preservation of any evidence in case there was a crime. At this point, we don’t think so,” he said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County and much of Northern California have been placed under a red flag warning due to an incoming weather system expect to bring heavy winds.
The National Weather Service issued the warning for portions of interior Northern California from 8 a.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday.
The agency said a red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly.
Such warnings are issued in response to a combination of strong winds, low relative humidity, and warm temperatures that can contribute to extreme fire behavior.
The National Weather Service said a weather system digging into the Great Basin region will create gusty north to east winds over portions of interior Northern California Wednesday and Thursday.
Conditions are forecast to include low daytime and nighttime humidity.
The impacted areas include the northern Coastal Range and foothills, the Sacramento Valley, portions of the northern San Joaquin Valley, and the Northern Sierra Nevada and foothills below 7,000 feet.
North to northeast winds of 15 to 30 miles per hour with gusts of 35 to 45 miles per hour are forecast, with the potential for higher wind speeds in canyons and on exposed ridges.
In Lake County through the weekend, daytime temperatures are forecast to be into the mid 80s, with nighttime temperatures dropping into the high 40s and low 50s.
In the lower elevations, winds are expected to peak on Wednesday night in the high 20s, with wind speeds up to 20 miles per hour on Thursday, according to the local forecast.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The National Weather Service issued the warning for portions of interior Northern California from 8 a.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday.
The agency said a red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly.
Such warnings are issued in response to a combination of strong winds, low relative humidity, and warm temperatures that can contribute to extreme fire behavior.
The National Weather Service said a weather system digging into the Great Basin region will create gusty north to east winds over portions of interior Northern California Wednesday and Thursday.
Conditions are forecast to include low daytime and nighttime humidity.
The impacted areas include the northern Coastal Range and foothills, the Sacramento Valley, portions of the northern San Joaquin Valley, and the Northern Sierra Nevada and foothills below 7,000 feet.
North to northeast winds of 15 to 30 miles per hour with gusts of 35 to 45 miles per hour are forecast, with the potential for higher wind speeds in canyons and on exposed ridges.
In Lake County through the weekend, daytime temperatures are forecast to be into the mid 80s, with nighttime temperatures dropping into the high 40s and low 50s.
In the lower elevations, winds are expected to peak on Wednesday night in the high 20s, with wind speeds up to 20 miles per hour on Thursday, according to the local forecast.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council is seeking applications from Clearlake citizens for a seat on the Traffic Safety Committee.
Traffic Safety Committee members review traffic safety issues, street sign recommendations and requests, traffic control devices and requests and make recommendations to the Clearlake City Council with quarterly reports.
Applications are available at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive, on the city’s Web site at https://www.clearlake.ca.us/ or via email to Administrative Services Director/City Clerk Melissa Swanson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
The Clearlake City Council will consider applications at its Nov. 14 meeting.
Deadline for applications to be included in the council meeting packet is Nov. 7 at 5 p.m.
Traffic Safety Committee members review traffic safety issues, street sign recommendations and requests, traffic control devices and requests and make recommendations to the Clearlake City Council with quarterly reports.
Applications are available at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive, on the city’s Web site at https://www.clearlake.ca.us/ or via email to Administrative Services Director/City Clerk Melissa Swanson at
The Clearlake City Council will consider applications at its Nov. 14 meeting.
Deadline for applications to be included in the council meeting packet is Nov. 7 at 5 p.m.
Following utility-directed power shutoffs that impacted nearly two million Californians and ahead of another public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, decision by Pacific Gas and Electric, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday demanded that PG&E do more to provide information for customers and take action to reduce the number of customers impacted.
"While the immediate goal should be to better manage the current anticipated PSPS event, PG&E’s short-term objectives should include steps to ensure that as few people as possible are impacted by any future PSPS decision," wrote Gov. Newsom in his letter to PG&E CEO William Johnson.
Gov. Newsom urged the utility to adopt the directions of the California Public Utilities Commission and continued to extend the state’s technical and operational assistance – from providing forecasting and technological support to leveraging aircraft equipment and emergency personnel.
“I continue to extend the technical assistance currently offered by the State of California to reduce the impacts of PSPS, including operational guidance from Cal OES, meteorological data from Cal Fire, and most recently, infrared-equipped aircraft to assist in inspections of power line safety and the acceleration of power restoration,” wrote the governor. “Cal OES will activate State and Regional Operations Centers to respond appropriately and ensure continuity of state agency operations that support California residents.”
Following PG&E’s unprecedented PSPS earlier this month, the governor urged PG&E to provide affected customers an automatic credit or rebate of $100 per residential customer and $250 per small business as some compensation for their hardships.
Read the full letter to PG&E CEO Johnson below.
"While the immediate goal should be to better manage the current anticipated PSPS event, PG&E’s short-term objectives should include steps to ensure that as few people as possible are impacted by any future PSPS decision," wrote Gov. Newsom in his letter to PG&E CEO William Johnson.
Gov. Newsom urged the utility to adopt the directions of the California Public Utilities Commission and continued to extend the state’s technical and operational assistance – from providing forecasting and technological support to leveraging aircraft equipment and emergency personnel.
“I continue to extend the technical assistance currently offered by the State of California to reduce the impacts of PSPS, including operational guidance from Cal OES, meteorological data from Cal Fire, and most recently, infrared-equipped aircraft to assist in inspections of power line safety and the acceleration of power restoration,” wrote the governor. “Cal OES will activate State and Regional Operations Centers to respond appropriately and ensure continuity of state agency operations that support California residents.”
Following PG&E’s unprecedented PSPS earlier this month, the governor urged PG&E to provide affected customers an automatic credit or rebate of $100 per residential customer and $250 per small business as some compensation for their hardships.
Read the full letter to PG&E CEO Johnson below.
102219 Gov. Gavin Newsom Letter to PG&E CEO Bill Johnson by LakeCoNews on Scribd
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Pacific Gas and Electric said Tuesday evening that it is still deciding whether or not to call another public safety power shutoff that could impact hundreds of thousands of residents across the region, including several thousand in a portion of southern Lake County.
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for much of Northern California for a hot and dry wind event expected to occur Wednesday and Thursday. The warning is in effect from 5 a.m. Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday.
PG&E said that a decision on whether or not to move forward with the shutoff will be made on Wednesday morning, with shutoffs to portions of the Sierra Foothills and North Bay expected to begin Wednesday afternoon and additional shutoffs in San Mateo and Kern counties to start early Thursday.
On Tuesday, the company said it had narrowed the scope of the potential shutdown to 189,000 customer accounts across 16 counties, a reduction of about 20,000 customers since Monday. That reduction is the result of changing weather information and PG&E's ability to sectionalize certain lines.
PG&E said a portion of south Lake County remains in the potential shutoff area.
On Tuesday, the estimated number of Lake County customers expected to be included in the proposed shutoff dropped by six to a total of 1,895 customers – including 65 medical baseline accounts – in Cobb, Loch Lomond, a small portion of Kelseyville and Middletown.
Since Monday, a small portion of Lake County residents near Upper Lake and along Highway 20 near the Lake and Mendocino County border have been removed from the potential outage area.
The customers in south Lake County and other parts of the North Bay in the proposed shutoff area could have power turned off beginning at 3 p.m. Wednesday, while those in the Sierra Foothills could experience a shutoff at 2 p.m. Groups of customers in San Mateo and Kern Counties would have power cut at 1 a.m. Thursday.
If the shutoff goes forward, a community resource center for Lake County will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday at Konocti Vista Casino, 2755 Mission Rancheria Road in Lakeport.
PG&E’s address lookup tool can help south county residents determine if their home or business is in the potential outage area.
During a Tuesday evening briefing, it was reported that PG&E’s new Web site – built to handle increased traffic loads after the shutoff earlier this month resulted in massive traffic that caused its other site to crash – had gone down twice on Tuesday morning.
PG&E Chief Executive Officer and President Bill Johnson said efforts have been made to fix the Web site so that it’s fully operational going forward.
On Tuesday evening, the site appeared to be working.
Mark Quinlan, PG&E’s senior director of emergency preparedness and response and the deputy incident commander, gave a situational update.
Quinlan emphasized that PG&E has still not called a shutoff and that it continues to monitor the weather, with a decision to be made on Wednesday morning.
He said that on Monday PG&E began notifying all customers expected to be impacted and notified them again today by phone, email and text messages.
The final decision to call the shutoff will be made in consultation with state agencies including the state Office of Emergency Services, Cal Fire and the California Public Utilities Commission, all of which have representatives in PG&E’s emergency operations center in San Francisco, Quinlan said.
Quinlan explained the shutoff times for the Sierra Foothills and North Bay were set to be ahead of the peak of the forecast wind event, expected to take place at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
If deenergization takes place, an all-clear is forecast for noon on Thursday. Quinlan said once the all-clear is given, PG&E’s crews would immediately begin patrolling on the ground and in the air in order to identify damage.
Following the shutoff earlier this month, 130 cases of damage – including trees and other vegetation into power lines – were identified by inspections throughout the outage area, Quinlan said.
So far, the damage inspection work has been limited to daytime hours. However, Quinlan said that on Tuesday night PG&E will be testing the use of a California Highway Patrol plane with LIDAR, which could allow infrastructure to be patrolled at night.
LIDAR, which stands for “light detection and ranging,” is a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed lasers to generate three-dimensional information.
“We’re looking forward to those results,” Quinlan said.
Johnson – who told the CPUC during a Friday hearing that public safety power shutoffs could be necessary for at least a decade while equipment is improved – said PG&E is monitoring still another dry wind event forecast for this weekend.
On Tuesday night, with that event still 100 or more hours away, Johnson couldn’t say if a shutoff would be the result.
Email Elizabeth Larson at