Power Returning Across San Francisco

Update, 9:51 p.m. Saturday: PG&E is restoring power for tens of thousands of households and businesses across San Francisco.

As of 9:30 p.m. Saturday night, the outage was affecting just over 40,000 customers, down from a high of 130,000 without power.

In a video posted on X, PG&E said crews were working from the substation on 8th and Mission to restore power. That substation was the site of a fire that the San Francisco Fire Department worked to extinguish Saturday evening.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

In an email, PG&E spokesperson Edgar Hopida said that power restoration would continue through the night, and warned it could stretch into the early morning hours on Sunday.

The multi-hour power outage caused large traffic jams in the city, with many stoplights out of service.

Transit systems were also impacted, but by 7:35 p.m. Saturday evening, BART said it had reopened both the Powell and Civic Center stations, and normal train service had resumed in all directions.

MUNI service also resumed through the Central Subway, but transit officials said service through the Market St. Subway would remained closed through Saturday evening.

Original article, 5:49 p.m. Saturday: Around 130,000 PG&E residential and business customers are without power in San Francisco as of 5 p.m. on Saturday because of a widespread power outage.

Residents in the Presidio, Sunset and Richmond districts are among those affected by the outage.

The company said at around 5 p.m. that it had “stabilized the grid” and that additional outages are not expected.

Despite power restoration estimates on its outage map, PG&E said it could not give a timeline for when power would be restored.

“We know our outage map on pge.com is saying restoration [is] possible later today and we are not able to confirm that just yet,” said Edgar Hopida, a spokesperson for the company, in an email to KQED.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management began alerting residents of outages shortly before 2 p.m. on social media, though a report from the San Francisco Chronicle said that outages had started Saturday morning for those on the city’s western side.

Lt. Mariano Elias, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Fire Department, said that the department responded to a fire that broke out at one of PG&E’s substations on 8th and Mission shortly after 2 p.m. today. But he couldn’t confirm if it was “the root cause” of the outage.

Elias said, as of 6:00p.m. Saturday, the fire in the four-story substation was extinguished, and SFFD crews had turned the building over to PG&E. There were no injuries reported.

The outage leaves some shoppers and businesses without power the weekend before Christmas.

“Stop lights in and around the area are out. Traffic is really bad in the area,” said Elias.

Some BART and SFMTA trains are bypassing stops because of the outage. Just after 7 p.m. Saturday, BART said its Powell St. station had reopened, but the station at Civic Center remained closed.

SFMTA said shortly after 5 p.m. that its trains are not getting into both Muni Metro and the Central Subway, and that shuttles are being provided to riders between West Portal station and Caltrain.

The Department of Emergency Management told residents on social media they should avoid non-essential travel and turn off major appliances to prevent surges.