[UPDATE 4:26 p.m.: Almost All Power Restored] Large Power Outages Leaves More Than 10,000 PG&E Customers in the Eel River Valley Without Electricity
A widespread power outage knocked out electricity to large portions of the Eel River Valley early Thursday afternoon, leaving more than 10,000 PG&E customers without service.
According to PG&E’s outage map, the outages began at approximately 1:37 p.m. on June 25.
Screenshot of PG&E’s outage map.
Supervisor Michelle Bushnell posted on Facebook that the cause appears to be bird intrusion at the Eel River substation. “They are inspecting now,” she stated.
The utility is reporting three major outages affecting a combined 10,472 customers:
- 7,361 customers are without power, with no estimated restoration time available.
- 1,626 customers are without power, with no estimated restoration time available.
- 1,485 customers are without power, with an estimated restoration time of 11:45 p.m. Thursday.
PG&E says the outages are unplanned and that crews are currently evaluating the electrical system to identify damaged equipment before repairs can begin.
“Our team is evaluating the electrical system to identify damaged sections and make necessary repairs in order to safely turn the power back on,” the utility states on its outage page.
The cause of the outage has not yet been announced.
The outage appears to affect much of the Eel River Valley, though PG&E has not released a detailed list of impacted communities.
UPDATE 4:06 p.m.: Residents in Fortuna are reporting that their power came back on about 3:15 p.m. However, PG&E’s outage map shows that power is still out in the Eel River Valley west of the Eel River.
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Bird intrusion?
Tell us more please.
Usually, that “should” mean that a bird, or birds, got inside of an electrical equipment enclosure that they should have specifically been “excluded” from and thus caused a “Short Circuit” when they touched 2 paths of electricity.
But, as publicly used industry language isn’t always as ubiquitous as may or may not be intended, it could just mean that 1 or more birds caused a “Short Circuit” contact between 2 or more paths of electricity that must remain isolated from each other.
That could also be outdoor equipment, like on a utility pole or at a substation.
Somewhere there’s a cooked bird or, maybe, only some feathers blowing around and/or stuck on some equipment (like crust on a casserole dish).
Enough juice can come pretty damn close to vaporizing a sizable bird in an Arc-Flash of plasma and fire.
Example of a previously major problem, now mostly solved:
Birds’ nests on Utility poles.
Used to be that birds, primarily larger Raptors (hawks, eagles, etc), would cause Shorts on utility lines as they’d build nests where the crossbars met the pole, very close to live lines.
Now in most areas where it was a regular issue, some # of utility poles in a local area have nesting platforms built on top to accommodate the birds and near totally eliminate both bird death & utility failures due to their nesting activities.
In the 80s/90s this was an especially common problem, even inside cities.
Local news outlets nationwide did a good job at shaming the utilities for killing bald eagles back when they were an Endangered Species.
Optimum is telling me my Fortuna power will be back on around 6:30.
I’m shocked! Shocked to find out that birds are getting in here.
Campton heights restored 3:09
Ferndale just came back on at 4:10