A massive power outage plunged much of the world into darkness San Francisco Saturday evening and Around 130,000 residents were without poweramid disruptions to public transport, switched off traffic lights and official calls for extreme precautions.
The outage affected large parts of the city – one of the most important technology centers on the West Coast of the United States – especially on the weekend before the holidayswith clogged streets, closed businesses and growing concern among neighbors.
“We are working with emergency services and local authorities to address a power outage affecting approximately 130,000 customers,” Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), the largest local electric company, reported in a statement posted on the social network X.
As the hours passed, the situation forced an emergency response. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie urged people to stay in their homes and avoid moving around the city Given the combination of darkness, out-of-service traffic lights and expected rain overnight.
“It’s night and the rain is coming. If you don’t have to go out, stay at home,” the community leader wrote to the emergency call center, while police and traffic controllers were deployed at the main intersections to direct traffic.
As Lurie himself confirmed, The power outage was caused by a fire in a substationalthough authorities could not indicate when service would be fully restored.
“The outage left much of the north side of the city in darkness, with initial impacts in the Richmond and Presidio neighborhoods as well as areas near Golden Gate Park. Images of restaurants, stores and unlit Christmas decorations began to proliferate on social networks and local media.
The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management warned of this “Significant impact on traffic” and recommended avoiding non-essential travel. Transportation officials confirmed that some Muni bus lines and BART trains missed stops due to power outages.
Fire officials said at least some of the outages were related to a fire at a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets that was reported around 3:15 p.m.
Hours later, around 4 p.m., the electric company claimed to have stabilized the grid and ruled out further disruptions, but warned that it could not yet confirm whether supplies had been fully restored in the early hours of Sunday.
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