[UPDATE Monday 8:19 a.m.] Over 2000 Without Power in Orleans/Hoopa/Willow Creek Area; Estimated Restoration 4 p.m.
Over 2000 PG&E customers are without electricity in the Hoopa Willow Creek area. Hoopa Valley Fire Chief Rod Mendes posted the following information on the Hoopa Valley Tribe Facebook page:
Just got off the phone with the PG&E emergency operations center. Major Structural damage and powerline damage near Maple creek. Additional transmission lines down between there and Willow Creek as well. PG&E says it’s pretty bad.
Field crews assessing the damage got trapped behind lines that came down behind them. Those crews are being extricated as soon as the lines that fell behind them are safe guarded. Additional Crews coming into the area are being delayed due to conditions on 101 south. Helicopter assessments are delayed due to a medical emergency they responded to and are now working their way back toward us to do aerial recon. Several power lines are down between Willow Creek and Hoopa, and between Hoopa and Orleans. Tree crews are out and doing what they can. There are distribution lines down and poles broken in various locations along the 299 and 96 corridor.
Estimated time for restoration of local power is 4 pm tomorrow afternoon. But, that may change as crews finish assessments and complete work. It could be sooner or longer. We won’t know until assessments are completed. In discussions with PG&E they are ordering generators for the Hoopa substation. But that will take a couple days to get set up.
Stay home, stay warm. Stay off the roads, if possible. If this continues through the night, I will be working with Tribal Departments to do checks on elders and our critical population. I am in touch with the Chairman and Vice-Chairman.”
– Fire Chief Rod Mendes, 02/10/2019 at 3:11 pm
UPDATE Monday 8:19 a.m.: PG&E now says 3 p.m. restoral for those in the Willow Creek area. And noon for those east of there but for the Hoopa area there still is no estimate on when power will be restored.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
I’ve been checking the PG&E outage line. Suddenly that site told me that they were sorry I couldn’t pay my bill that way. Then it deleted the part about paying my bill and just said “We’re sorry.” I think they are pretty stressed when they don’t even ask you what the problem but just apologize for it all.
Thank you Kym for reporting this. PG&E’s site changes verbage but never gives anything as useful (even if I don’t want to hear it) as this.
🕯👍🏾👍🏾Yes thank you Kym.
I’m confused as to which parts should be on by 4pm tomorrow, and which parts wont be on for a couple days until they truck generators in and set them up…
Kym, Do you have any info on Myers Flat outage? It’s been out since early AM. I’m without power, phone almost dead, propane almost gone, & no transportation. No info on PGE site about about expected time of recovery. Have you heard anything? Thank you.
No, I don’t know. All I can find out is on the attached photo. That’s awful. Will you be able to make it through the night with the propane you have, Candace?
It’s Monday night now. The electricity just came back on. I finally found someone who could charge my phone in their car, & an hour later the lights are on. Go figure. And the propane made it too, with very limited use(& a lot of blankets). Thanks to those people who read the post & called me. Though I didn’t get your messages until today(when phone was charged), they were much appreciated. And, thank you, Kym, for having this forum to post such things. If phone wasn’t dead I would have responded. I definitely will be more prepared for the next storm.
Big hug! Stay safe.
💖
🕯Iknow this may sound crazy Candance but if you sent Kym a private email with your address info maybe she might know someone that might hustle some propane out your way if possible? Just saying.
If she doesn’t have enough to make it til morning, I thought I would put a request out for help.
Not crazy at all. I did send Kym my email, but phone went dead, so no one could contact me. Thanks for the suggestion though. Power was finally restored tonight(Monday), I’m back on my phone & all is well. I’ll be more prepared next time, for sure! Oh, the things we take for granted!
Candace, I didn’t get it! Maybe you wrote it wrong? [email protected]
Keep my email just in case something happens in this next storm that is coming.
I live in Somes Bar along the Salmon River and PG&E told me Tuesday at 4:00 pm.
Ugh…that is horrible!
For Orleans, PGE says: ESTIMATED RESTORATION: FEB 12, 3:59 PM
Tuesday. No light, no heat, freezing temps at night…
I suppose it beats having the town burn down around you, but there is a reason I’ve always thought that P G & E stood for Pigs Goats & Elephants.
Excuse me! Why do you get out there and fix the lines and clear the trees and roads. Get off you phone and go help some people instead of bad mouthing all the people who are out there risking their lives away from their homes and families to help others. Oh I suppose PG&E made it snow too! Ass.
Not blaming them for the snow.
Mostly I am cold, chilled to the bone, unable to do the work I am physically fit to do (pushing 70 here), sitting in the dark with nowhere to go.
My current irritation is MOSTLY over the fact that PG&E hasn’t been especially communicative about when and where the power will be on again.
Unless you live in Hoopa, there is no news for us and this response is wasting my batteries.
Why aren’t You out there helping your community and making sure everyone is safe and warm?
Hunker down- you know what that means- you’ve been there , done that, and know how to.
Having lived in Orleans during the 64 flood at 8 yrs old, it instilled in me to always have a Coleman stove and lantern near by.
Just now at 8:07 PM the electricity came back on in Orleans (actually a mile down River from Orleans).
Propane generator automatically shut off and power remains on.
My mind had accepted that power would be off until Tuesday evening.
Wahoo! Some folks in the area are still without power but you got lucky. I hope everyone else gets lucky soon, too!
The power is still off as of early morning in the Kneeland area. Looking at the outage areas I wonder why such a large area that is so close to town is still out. It would be nice if PG&E would give more information than their stock “we investigating” type phrases so people could do some planning. According to their web site, they have been sending a repair crew that never arrives for the last 28 hours.
One good thing about losing power in a snow storm is that water pumping is not a necessity. I just step out the door, fill a bucket with snow and set it by the wood stove to melt.
Power in whitethorn still off. They say that shelter cove is only listed as one customer plus the customers in Whitethorn. So the numbers out are not real. They will not pay overtime or bring in outside crews. The last outage they went home at 4:30 then drove back down from Fortuna and Eureka the next day and started to show up to work around 9:45 /10: 00. To work in the pouring rain rather than stay and finish the repair, Pge had 14 people out of the Garberville yard back in 1990 now they have one troubled man WTF. The new Flow Kana building in Whitethorn has had power requested since April 2018. Still not hooked up
Power was off all day yesterday in Trinidad! Came back on around 3 a.m. Mon.
I’ve been waiting it out in Willow Creek with only battery power for light & phone (my heat is electric). If the power is coming back today I’ll stay; if it’s longer, then today is the best window to get out before more storms.
How accurate is the 4pm timeline? I read that ACE is open, any other stores open (like Ray’s)?
Thanks again for all you do!
I can’t promise anything but PG&E now says 3 p.m. for those in the Willow Creek area. And Noon for those east of there but for the Hoopa area there still is no estimate on when power will be restored.
That is really odd to have the power still out in Willow Creek and Hoopa yet I have had power back since yesterday evening. I am at Camp Creek about a mile West of Orleans. Usually when the power goes out it comes back in stages from Willow Creek to Hoopa to Weitchpec to Bluff Creek.
That is because of the generators installed by PG&E at Tommy Tune Up’s a few years back. Parts of Red Caps are still out.
A friend in Hoopa was able to shop at both Ace and Rays in Willow Creek. Due to the fiber optics line damage they were only able to accept cash for purchases. Both businesses have generators. Can a Willow Creek resident update us on what other businesses are open?
Rays,Both gas stations,Ace,River song
Thursday 2-14, 9:45am in Del Loma (5 miles east of Burnt Ranch); we are still without power or even an estimate as to when it might come back on. I have repeatable signed up for PG&E updates since day 1 and have not received one.