Power restored after outage left nearly 2,000 SLO County customers without electricity
Nearly 2,000 PG&E customers in northern San Luis Obispo County were without power for about four hours on Thursday morning.
A total of 1,722 PG&E customers were impacted by the power outage at 7:22 a.m., according to the utility company. Power was restored shortly after 11 a.m.
The outage was triggered by PG&E’s Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings, spokesperson Carina Corral told The Tribune.
“PG&E crews patrolled the line, looking for any hazards and making sure it’s safe to re-energize to restore power to all customers,” she said. “In this case, they were not able to determine the cause of the outage. Sometimes these hazards, like animals or branches, are no longer visible when our crews patrol to restore power.”
The outage stretched from around the intersection of San Andres Avenue and Santa Lucia Road in central Atascadero, west toward Fuentes Road and north toward Santa Rita Road, according to PG&E’s power outage map.
PG&E has equipped the power lines in the fire-prone Atascadero area with technology that quickly shuts off the electricity when a tree branch or other vegetation falls on a charged line. This has caused power outages in the area in the past.
This story was originally published August 31, 2023 at 9:07 AM.
