More than 8,300 still without power in Santa Cruz County after one of the ‘strongest storms in three decades’

Now three days after last weekend’s raging winds, more than 8,300 Santa Cruz County residents remained without power Wednesday afternoon. The majority of the outages are concentrated in the Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek areas. 

Of the 8,380 customers without power as Wednesday turned toward evening, 8,215 of those were in unincorporated parts of the county. Pacific Gas & Electric spokesperson Stephanie Magallon said work crews have had quite a lot on their hands this week, as Sunday’s storm was “one of the strongest winter storms in the last three decades.”

“The strong, sustained winds and high gusts caused an incredible amount of damage,” she said. “You can imagine the amount of work that followed.”

Magallon said that countywide, crews had to repair or replace as many as 800 utility poles, 2,000 power lines and several hundred transformers. She added that 400 crews were actively working to restore power to all residents, but simply having a lot of boots on the ground doesn’t always mean a faster restoration time.

“We have dozens of people at each site going from community to community to clear trees, replace poles, and install new lines,” Magallon said, adding that no estimated power restoration time in some locations is likely due to crews struggling to access the damaged equipment. “It’s a lot of time and work, and there are hundreds of sites like this.”

Visit PG&E’s outage center to check on the number of outages and estimated restoration times.

More heavy rain rolled through the county Wednesday, but the wet weather has been sporadic and will be fleeting, per forecasts. National Weather Service meteorologist Dalton Behringer said most areas of Santa Cruz County would get no more than an inch of rain through the end of the day, and the rest of the week is expected to stay dry.

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