Two separate PG&E outages knocked out power to roughly 7,610 homes and businesses across Bakersfield on Wednesday morning, stretching from the Oildale area down to the south side of the city. The outages were first reported at 8:59 a.m., and crews were still working to pin down what caused them.
According to the PG&E outage map cited by KGET, the two outages touched a wide swath of the city, including Manor Street, East Roberts Lane, Alta Vista Drive, downtown, South H Street and Planz Road. The map estimated that power would be restored by 11:30 a.m., though PG&E crews were still determining the underlying cause of the disruption as of Wednesday morning.
A Pattern of Outages Across Kern County
A Pattern of Outages Across Kern County Wednesday's blackout is far from the first time thousands of Bakersfield customers have lost power this year. In early July, an unplanned outage affected 1,737 customers in southwest Bakersfield, with PG&E estimating restoration by 9:30 a.m., the same report's crews have offered before in similar situations. A separate incident left more than 8,000 customers without power across south, central, Old Town Kern and East Bakersfield after a late-afternoon storm, a disruption that turned out to be three distinct outages of 3,846, 1,666 and 2,871 customers apiece, with winds from a dust storm blamed for the trouble, the station reported.
Another outage hit southwest Bakersfield on a Tuesday afternoon, cutting service to 4,335 customers along parts of Gosford Road between Ming Avenue and Lindsay Road, with restoration estimated by 8 p.m., according to a report from BakersfieldNow. Taken together, these episodes suggest outages affecting a few thousand to several thousand customers are a recurring feature of life on PG&E's Bakersfield-area grid, even when weather conditions vary from dust storms to clear mornings.
What PG&E's Reliability Numbers Show
PG&E says it continuously tracks outages across its entire service territory to calculate its reliability performance, and it files an annual electric reliability report with the California Public Utilities Commission that is available to the public, according to PG&E. In 2024, the utility reported a System Average Interruption Duration Index of about 276.4 minutes per customer, meaning the average sustained outage kept a customer without power for well over four hours systemwide. PG&E also reported a System Average Interruption Frequency Index of about 1.832 sustained outages per customer that year, along with a Customer Average Interruption Duration Index of 150.9 minutes measuring restoration time once an outage hit, and a Momentary Average Interruption Frequency Index of 1.205 per customer.
Wildfire Risk Driving Shutoffs Elsewhere in Kern County
Power disruptions in the region have not been limited to unplanned outages. Public safety power shutoffs have been in place across parts of Kern County, including Tehachapi, east of Bakersfield and south of Arvin, as PG&E works to limit wildfire risk, per a report from turnto23.com. PG&E spokesperson Jeff Smith told the outlet that gusty winds, dry conditions and above-average temperatures were making the area ripe for fire activity, and the utility has said these planned shutoffs are intended to reduce the possibility of a wildfire starting rather than to respond to equipment failure. It remains unclear whether Wednesday's Bakersfield outages were connected to those same wildfire conditions, a dust storm, or some other cause, since PG&E crews had not yet determined the source of the disruption.
