Power outage hits 3,220 in Cambria

A large, smoldering transformer near Santa Lucia Middle School failed at 12:14 p.m. Feb. 18. The malfunction cut power to 3,220 customers of PG&E, including much of downtown Cambria and the Veterans Memorial Building, where the services district board’s monthly meeting was about to begin.

Firefighters responded to make sure sparks didn’t start a fire. PG&E line crews “were able to safely restore power to all our customers by 1:35 p.m.,” according to John Lindsey, the utility’s spokesman and meteorologist.

According to some affected customers, the span of the outage ranged from the southern end of Lodge Hill’s Top of the World neighborhood to parts of Happy Hill and beyond.

Fortunately, the weather was bright and sunny, and the Vets Hall’s main room has lots of windows.

Gail Robinette, president of the Cambria Community Services District Board of Directors, started the meeting at 12:45 p.m., even though the customary video recording couldn’t proceed until power was restored. AGP Video resorted to an old-fashioned, battery-powered audio recorder to capture some of the “blacked out” portion of the proceedings.

A couple of slide-show and Power Point presentations that had been scheduled for the early part of the CSD meeting were skipped or rescheduled.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 12:36 PM with the headline "Power outage hits 3,220 in Cambria."