A substation fire caused a major blackout in San Francisco, affecting 130,000 customers and crippling traffic and businesses during peak holiday shopping.
SAN FRANCISCO: Power has been restored to most of the 130,000 homes and businesses impacted by a massive, hours-long outage.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company stated that by 7:30 am local time, service was back for about 110,000 customers.
Efforts continue to reconnect the remaining 21,000 affected.
City officials confirmed the blackout was caused by a fire at a substation.
“The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” the company said.
It added that it had mobilised additional engineers and electricians to address the issue.
Large parts of the West Coast tech hub were plunged into darkness on Saturday.
The outage caused major disruptions to public transport and left many traffic lights non-functional during a busy Christmas shopping weekend.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie acknowledged the severity of the situation in a video statement.
“I know this was a rough day,” Lurie said from the city’s emergency operations centre.
He noted that many traffic signals were out, requiring police to manage intersections.
The self-driving ride-hailing service Waymo also paused its operations due to the blackout.
Parts of the city were blanketed in fog during the outage.
Many businesses were forced to close for the day at the height of the holiday shopping period.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported the outage left normally bustling commercial areas unusually quiet.
A manager of the Black and Gold home goods store called the abrupt fall in shoppers “devastating” for business. – AFP
