PG&E Plans Power Outages for San Francisco Neighborhoods Hit by Major Blackout

The massive unplanned outage the weekend before Christmas knocked out power for more than 130,000 city residents across wide swaths of the city, snarling traffic and transit and sparking outrage against the utility company.

Kate Bueler, a fourth-generation San Francisco resident who lives in the Richmond District, said she hoped the outage would revive calls to break up PG&E.

“I think it’s really shining a light on the fact that PG&E is not appropriate for us any longer. And I hope that there’s calls for public power,” Bueler said. “Power monopoly doesn’t work.”

Three weeks later, some residents are still enduring the noise from generators PG&E installed to shore up power in the neighborhood, which the company installed outside of the PG&E building on the corner of 24th Avenue and Balboa Street.

The generators, which have been providing supplemental power to the area during the repair process, will finally be removed when final repairs to the substation are completed.

“The constant diesel fumes, noise and general disruption without an end date or communication from PGE has been nuts,” one neighborhood resident posted on Reddit.