A massive power outage affected most of Santa Cruz County Tuesday evening.
(PG&E power outage map)
PG&E equipment failure briefly leaves 63,000 customers in the dark countywide
A massive power outage Tuesday evening left about 63,000 households in the dark countywide, from Watsonville through Ben Lomond.
It was caused by transmission equipment failure, PG&E spokesperson Mayra Tostado said Wednesday morning following an investigation. The outage began at 5:09 p.m. and lasted about 20 minutes. Power was restored to all affected customers by about 5:30 p.m., Tostado said.
Residents lost power across much of Santa Cruz County, including in Aptos, Ben Lomond, Capitola, Corralitos, Davenport, Felton, Freedom, La Selva Beach, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Soquel and Watsonville.
Outages in certain communities are relatively common, especially during fire season, but the breadth of the outage was unusual.