PG&E to test equipment damaged in December fire during planned Civic Center outage
Less than a month after a monumental PG&E outage, it will be lights out again for those most impacted.
PG&E announced a planned outage scheduled to start just after midnight on Monday.
During that time, PG&E will complete its final tests of the Mission Substation equipment that was damaged in the fire on Dec. 20.
The outage in December impacted approximately 130,000 San Francisco customers, some for several days, including Jimmy Fitzpatrick.
"We're just assuming worst-case scenario," said Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick lives in the NEMA building near Market and 10th streets, not far from the Mission Substation.
During the outage, he lost all his food, couldn't flush the toilet, or use the elevator, and he lives on the 25th floor.
"I was shocked," Fitzpatrick explained. "The building was completely unprepared for anything like this."
Now, he's bracing for another outage.
PG&E has notified people in the Civic Center area that there is a scheduled outage starting shortly after midnight on Monday. The electric company says it will last up to 12 hours, but Fitzpatrick is prepared for more.
"Twenty-four hours, probably," said Fitzpatrick when asked how long he thinks it will last.
His neighbor, Fiona Wu, is frustrated by the whole situation.
"I actually filed a claim to PG&E for all the spoiled food, and they kind of refused to compensate for it," said Wu. "And also my $200 credit was not reflected on my account and I had to reach out to them, like what's going on?"
She did eventually get the credit, which PG&E said would automatically be given to all impacted residential customers to offset the inconvenience and disruption caused by the outage.
PG&E says this planned outage should help prevent surprise outages in the future.
"When we return to normal operations, we expect this will help avoid some of the brief outages that customers in the Richmond District/Golden Gate Park area have experienced over the last couple of weeks," said PG&E in a statement sent out to the media. "We know these outages have been frustrating for our customers, and we've been working tirelessly during this time to inspect equipment and develop plans to provide the reliability that our customers expect and deserve."
For now, Fitzpatrick is just doing what he can, including charging up his battery pack and stocking up on water.
He says there is a silver lining, and that's the opportunity to connect without distractions.
"It felt nice to look up for our phones and look at people," said Fitzpatrick. "Just remember that we can count on people that we live near for basic supplies."
There will be a second outage. PG&E says that one will occur shortly after midnight Tuesday, affecting approximately 14,000 San Francisco customers in the Richmond District area.
It is scheduled to be much shorter, lasting up to two hours.
Once the return to normal operations is complete, PG&E will remove the temporary generators located at 24th and Balboa.