PG&E Readies for Thanksgiving Week Storms; More than 2,000 Personnel Continue to Support Camp Fire Response
21 November 2018 - 5:30AM
Business Wire
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is readying for the
most rainfall since early April across Northern and Central
California starting Wednesday and continuing through the
Thanksgiving weekend.
PG&E electric crews and vegetation contract crews are on
alert for potential outages and will be ready to respond to
outages, and local emergency operations centers will activate as
needed.
The company’s storm response won’t affect PG&E’s continuing
restoration work in response to the Camp Fire in Butte County. As
of Sunday, Nov. 18, more than 2,000 PG&E employees and
contractors are doing gas and electric restoration work and
removing hazardous trees in the fire zone.
“PG&E has been preparing for storms such as this for many
months. PG&E has a plan, and we want to encourage our customers
to have a plan as well,” said Michael Lewis, PG&E’s vice
president of electric distribution operations.
PG&E’s meteorology department utilizes a storm outage
prediction model that is an effective tool to help the company
respond to power outages more efficiently. The tool utilizes data
sources to provide estimates on the potential timing, location and
number of outages that we expect to see during a storm event.
PG&E is utilizing technology to help us restore power more
quickly and efficiently after a storm. This includes the
installation of automated equipment that “self-heals” the grid as
well as timely and accurate outage data from our SmartMeter
network.
These wet and windy conditions might cause trees, limbs and
other debris to fall into power lines, damage equipment and
interrupt electric service.
Heavy rainfall in areas impacted by the wildfires over the last
several years might produce risk of mud slides and debris flows.
PG&E reminds customers to heed all warnings from
first-responders. PG&E meteorologists and seismologists will be
monitoring the weather forecast closely and working with our
Electric and Gas Operations team to understand the risk during each
storm event.
PG&E’s meteorologists forecast that rain showers will spread
across Northern and Central California on Wednesday with a
stronger, wetter storm moving in late on Thanksgiving day and into
Friday. Current forecast models suggest about two to four or more
inches of widespread precipitation across the elevated terrain of
Northern California is possible through Friday, which will decrease
fire danger across the territory.
Stay safe during an outage
Here are some tips for PG&E customers in case outages do
occur:
- Treat all downed power lines as if they
are energized and extremely dangerous. Keep yourself and others
away from them. Call 911, and then notify PG&E at
1-800-743-5000.
- During a power outage, use
battery-operated flashlights instead of candles due to the risk of
fire. If you must use candles, keep them away from drapes, lamp
shades and small children and never leave them unattended.
- Unplug major appliances during a power
outage to prevent possible damage when the power is turned back on.
Keep a light on to let you know when power is restored.
- If you have a generator, inform
PG&E and do not use it unless it is installed safely and
properly. If it is not, you risk damaging your property and
endangering yourself and PG&E line workers who may be working
on nearby power lines. Information on the safe installation of
generators can be found on our website at
http://www.pge.com/generator.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San
Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers
some of the nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in
Northern and Central California. For more information, visit
www.pge.com and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.
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