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Davis residents react to having power turned off by PG&E

Davis resident react to power being turned off by PG&E
Davis resident react to power being turned off by PG&E 02:58

DAVIS - More than 12,000 PG&E customers in Davis were powerless during some of the hottest temperatures of the day Tuesday when the highs topped out at 113 degrees.

UC Davis roommates Maile Wallace and Sydney Strupp were left in darkness with no relief from the heat. 

"It just feels so exhausting like you can't win," Strupp said.

"You feel like you can't get anything done," Wallace said. "You feel like your soul and your body are completely separate, and your body is melting."

Orlando Placencia's power was also shut off.

"I had a pretty hot day at work, I was just trying to cool off, boom everything shut off," Placencia said. "I'm not cool man, as you can see, I'm sweating bro."

Besides homes, street lights and traffic lights were also without power. The lack of relief from heat was the overwhelming impact.

A PG&E spokesperson explained the outage was a preventative measure called "load shutting."

The utility stressed this was not a rolling blackout imposed by Cal ISO, issuing a statement reading, in part: 

"In some instances when heat-related equipment failure is imminent PG&E will proactively deenergize to prevent safety hazards."

The hours-long outage left people here powerless during this super heatwave.

"I'm not gonna lie, it's a little depressing," Wallace said. 

The Davis Fire Department says they had no calls for service tonight related to the power outage.

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