A power outage knocked out electricity for thousands of San Francisco residents around midday on Monday, affecting the Haight-Ashbury and Mission District. PG&E restored more than half of affected customers almost immediately by switching them to an unaffected distribution line. More than 6,600 PG&E customers were without power shortly before noon, and the number had dropped to 3,238 by 12:30 p.m., 35 minutes later.
KRON4 reported that 6,605 customers were without power as of 11:55 a.m. across the Haight-Ashbury and Mission neighborhoods. By 12:30 p.m., Patch reported the count had dropped to 3,238 customers, with the outage then spread across Haight-Ashbury and parts of the Mission District and Potrero Hill, according to Patch.
Accounts of the outage's cause and expected restoration time differed between outlets. Patch reported that PG&E did not provide a cause for the outage but estimated power would be restored by 2 p.m. The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that the outage's cause and restoration timeline remained unclear at the time of its publication, with the outage affecting over 5,000 people across two parts of the city.
Mapping the Outage Zones
The Chronicle reported that a PG&E outage map showed trouble in the southern part of the Mission District as well as an area just south of Buena Vista Park, around Corona Heights Park. The newspaper identified the area between Guerrero and Carolina streets and Mission and 26th streets as part of the southern Mission area affected earlier, though that area was no longer impacted by 12:30 p.m. Some areas along 16th Street were also affected. The newspaper described the situation as a developing story as crews worked to restore power.
Part of a Longer Pattern of Outages
Monday's blackout adds to a run of major PG&E disruptions that has pushed San Francisco officials to demand state intervention. City leaders sent a letter Thursday to the president of the California Public Utilities Commission asking the agency to open a public proceeding into PG&E's operations in the city, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The letter followed a PG&E underground electrical fire on Oct. 1 that prompted street closures and a shelter-in-place order, as reported by the San Francisco Standard.
City officials have tallied at least 40 large-scale unplanned outages since the December blackout, each affecting more than 1,000 customers, the Standard reports — though the Chronicle separately characterized the count as at least 40 large-scale unplanned outages since January, each lasting more than 15 minutes and affecting at least 1,000 customer accounts. More than a quarter of those 40 outages hit the city's west side, per the same Standard report. Other recent incidents cited in the city's letter include a March 20 rolling blackout from the Castro to Haight-Ashbury that affected 14,000 customers and a July blackout in the Richmond and Presidio that left 9,500 customers without power.
Lingering Questions From December's Blackout
The scrutiny traces back to the December outage at PG&E's Mission Substation, which the Chronicle reported affected about 130,000 customer accounts, while the Standard's investigation into the incident put the figure at 120,000 customers. The fire-damaged substation was repaired in the aftermath.
Separately, the Chronicle reported that the Egbert Switching Station project, originally expected to enter service in 2021, has now been pushed back to 2029. PG&E's own 2024 reliability data, posted on pge.com, showed a System Average Interruption Duration Index of about 276.4 minutes per customer and roughly 1.832 sustained outages per customer systemwide that year.
