Quick Take
More than 1,600 Santa Cruz County residents were out of power on Monday afternoon due to strong winds that brought down tree branches and affected power lines in rural parts of the county. There were more than 3,000 without power earlier on Monday. Pacific Gas & Electric also implemented some public safety power shutoffs throughout the state, but is not currently planning any for Santa Cruz County.
A little more than 2,500 people in Santa Cruz County’s rural areas were without electricity on Monday afternoon after strong winds affected power lines and brought down branches at higher elevations.
According to Pacific Gas & Electric’s outage map, there were 1,620 people without electricity just before 3 p.m. on Monday. That was down from 2,504 people out of power shortly after 1 p.m. and more 3,000 without power earlier Monday morning. The outages were almost entirely in rural, unincorporated areas of the county, including Bonny Doon, Boulder Creek, the Lexington Hills and up Old San Jose Road north of Soquel, and Davenport and farther up the coast.
PG&E spokesperson Stephanie Magallon said the outages were due to heavy winds that blew through the region overnight. In Boulder Creek, she said, the utility’s enhanced power line safety settings kicked in when a branch fell onto a line, which automatically turns off power to prevent a fire from breaking out. The company also implemented public safety power shutoffs on Monday for 15 California counties due to heightened fire concerns coupled with high winds, affecting nearly 5,000 customers across the state. That includes some nearby counties, including San Benito, Stanislaus and Contra Costa.
“We saw powerful winds reaching up to 70 mph,” said Magallon, referring to the areas with public safety shutoffs. “On top of that, we’ve also been experiencing really dry ground conditions and very low humidity.”
The wind was less intense in Santa Cruz County, but was still strong enough for weather agencies to take action. National Weather Service meteorologist Rachel Kennedy told Lookout that the weather agency had issued a wind advisory for the Santa Cruz Mountains at 11 p.m. Sunday; that advisory expired at 11 a.m. Monday. She said that the coastal areas saw gusts between 20 and 30 mph, while higher elevations received gusts between 40 and 50 mph. Kennedy said that the strongest gust in the event was measured at Mount Umunhum at 86 mph.
“[The winds] are still kind of gusting now, but they all peaked around midnight and they’ll be on the downtrend for the rest of the afternoon and evening,” she said.
Magallon said that the unplanned outages in Santa Cruz County are expected to be resolved by late Monday afternoon, when power should be restored to affected customers, but added that “it will depend on the amount of damage sustained up there.”
Although there are no local public safety shutoffs, those currently in effect are gradually getting lifted, said Magallon, and those people will likely have power back by this evening as well.
“We gave the first ‘all clear’ notice, which means crews are able to go out, start inspections, identify any damages if there are any and start restoring power,” she said.
Magallon said that, should the agency decide to implement public safety shutoffs in Santa Cruz County, the agency will notify residents between 24 and 48 hours before they are expected to go into effect.
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