Update, 7:30 a.m. Sunday: Thousands of San Francisco households and businesses were still without power Sunday morning after a massive outage Saturday plunged 130,000 customers into darkness at its peak.
PG&E said it was investigating the cause of the outage, which affected large swaths of the city, including the Presidio, the Richmond and Sunset districts, and parts of downtown.
As of 7:30 a.m., about 21,000 customers were still without power.
In a statement Sunday morning, PG&E said it had no estimate for when power would be restored for the remaining customers, but would share more details “as our assessment and repair efforts continue.”
“This is a very complex workplan and will require the highest amount of safety [and] focus to ensure safe work actions,” PG&E spokesperson Edgar Hopida said, adding that the company has sent additional engineers and electricians to the city.
The San Francisco Fire Department said it started receiving 911 calls about a fire at a PG&E substation around 1:00 p.m. Saturday. Around 6:00 p.m. they had extinguished the fire and turned the building over to PG&E.
No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is under investigation.
PG&E said the damage to the substation was “ significant and extensive” and that repairs would be complex.
Fire officials said the fire’s connection to the outages remains unclear, with some of the outages starting as early as 9:00 a.m. Saturday.
The power outage snarled traffic and transit throughout the city Saturday evening. Waymo said its ride-hailing service was still suspended across the Bay Area Sunday morning, after its driverless taxis were seen stranded in city intersections amid the chaos.
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.
