An unplanned power outage near Diamond Springs, south of Placerville, knocked out electricity to 2,576 El Dorado County customers on Sunday. The outage began at 11:33 a.m., leaving customers in the area without power on an otherwise ordinary fall weekend.
According to The Sacramento Bee, a PG&E spokesperson told the newspaper that power had been restored to all affected customers by about 1:30 p.m. Sunday. PG&E attributed the outage to enhanced powerline safety settings that shut power down quickly when a hazard is detected.
A Pattern of Outages in El Dorado County
Sunday's outage is not an isolated headache for El Dorado County residents. A separate outage reported by KCRA left 3,421 county customers without power after a tree made contact with a power line, while a related incident in neighboring Calaveras County cut service to 4,454 customers during an unplanned outage. The station's report noted that PG&E's outage map later showed power had been restored in that case.
The county's outage history includes far larger disruptions. On Aug. 24, 2022, more than 80,000 PG&E customers across El Dorado County lost power, with the customer count falling to 1,156 by 11:45 a.m. and service fully restored by 2 p.m., per the same outlet. PG&E attributed that outage to an erroneous signal sent during compliance testing, which de-energized several transmission lines and substations.
Where to Track Outage Information
State regulators point residents toward broader resources for understanding grid reliability. The California Public Utilities Commission directs the public to utility electric-system reliability reports and current-outage information for tracking ongoing service disruptions. PG&E reported that power had been restored to all customers affected by Sunday's outage near Diamond Springs by about 1:30 p.m.
