A massive power outage hit San Francisco on Saturday, leaving 130,000 residents without power for several hours at its peak, with the city’s main utility saying all service would be restored overnight.
Pacific Gas & Electric Company said in a statement to X that power had been restored to about 90,000 households by 9 p.m. on Saturday (05:00 Sunday GMT), “with the remaining 40,000 customers expected to be restored overnight”.
Large parts of the West Coast tech hub, with a population of more than 800,000, were plunged into darkness, with public transport disrupted and many traffic lights down over a busy Christmas shopping weekend before power was restored.
“I know this has been a difficult day,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a video posted to X by the city’s emergency operations center.
“This is progress (to restore power) … but for those of you without power, we want to make sure you stay safe, check on your neighbors,” he said.
Lurie said police, fire and other city officials have been dispatched and asked residents to stay indoors if possible.
Many traffic signals were out, leaving traffic police to manage intersections, and self-driving car service Waymo had stopped operating its vehicles, he said.
A substation fire had caused the blackout, Lurie said.
Parts of the city were shrouded in fog and many businesses were forced to close for the day at the height of the holiday shopping season, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, leaving normally busy shopping areas quiet.
The sharp drop in shoppers just days before Christmas was “devastating” for business, a manager at home goods store Black & Gold told the San Francisco Chronicle.
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