Update: Here’s what caused the SLO County outage that knocked out power to 7,000 customers
Electricity was restored by 4 p.m. to the thousands of PG&E customers in San Luis Obispo County impacted by Wednesday’s power outage, according to PG&E spokesperson Carina Corral.
The power outage was triggered by PG&E’s Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings, a technology that shuts off electricity to prevent wildfires “when the system detects a danger, such as a fallen tree, a broken-off branch flying with the wind, an animal or bird strike, or some other such foreign object making contact with the powerlines,” Corral wrote in an email to The Tribune.
PG&E employees patrolled the powerlines in the area before re-activating the electricity and did not find the cause of the shutdown, Corral said.
The outage started at about 7 a.m. and impacted PG&E customers in parts of Atascadero, Templeton, Creston and Santa Margarita, the utility company said.
The outage was mostly on the east side of Highway 101 and included downtown Atascadero and the El Camino Real corridor from San Anselmo Road to near Curbaril Avenue, according to the PG&E power outage map.
A total of 7,087 customers lost electricity, according to PG&E.
This story was originally published June 28, 2023 at 11:28 AM.
