Around 600,000 customers were still without power Thursday afternoon and there was no clear indication of when it might be restored. That uncertainty heightened residents’ anger as food spoiled and businesses and schools stayed closed.
But the biggest fears were for the sick and older residents and those who rely on medical devices and equipment like electric wheelchairs.
“Not having power impacts everyone, obviously,” said Sunday Parker, who uses a wheelchair and lives in Oakland, parts of which were affected by the shutdown. “But for people with disabilities it can be life or death.”
Although many medical facilities said they had prepared for the outage — ordering extra oxygen tanks and installing generators, for example — the uncertain timing of the blackout spawned confusion. Pacific Gas & Electric, the utility that turned off the power, wavered on when it would start the blackout a number of times before the second stage of power cuts finally came late Wednesday. The first stage, which had cut power for around 500,000 residents, had come earlier that day.
Most of the concern was focused on people living on their own at home. Although more than 200 hospitals sit in the blackout zones, none have reported any significant effects on their patient services.
On a gusty day when a number of wildfires were reported across the state, firefighters remained on alert.
Steve Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Service, said average wind gusts in the San Francisco Bay Area reached 40 to 60 mph on Wednesday and Thursday. But Friday, he said, would bring relief. “Winds will be dying down dramatically,” Anderson said.
More gentle winds are a key factor in reducing fire hazards, allowing Pacific Gas & Electric to turn the power back on. But it remains unclear how long some people will have to wait to fully regain electricity.
Thousands of customers in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino and Kern counties were also without power Thursday afternoon after Southern California Edison, the state’s second-largest investor-owned utility after PG&E;, began implementing planned outages. Nearly 174,000 customers across nine counties in Central and Southern California have been notified about possible shut-offs.
This article originally appeared in
.