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Pacific Gas and Electric Company is preparing to implement widespread power cuts in 15 California counties next week if windy and arid conditions persist.
Hundreds of people in Southern California have already been forced to evacuate due to high winds that fueled the Orange County Bond fire in over 7300 acres.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BOND FIRE EXPLODES OVERNIGHT, FORCES EVACUATION OF THOUSANDS
Much of the state has been under the alert warnings – issued amid concerns of extreme fire danger – and thousands of residents have already suffered preventative outages.
Southern California Edison last week cut power to about 15,000 homes and businesses and is reportedly considering cutting power to another 271,000 this weekend.
In this archive photo from October 25, 2020, debris flies through the air as a PG & amp; lineman E works repairing electrical wires that were touching each other due to high winds on Manzanita Court in Concord, Calif. (Jose Carlos Fajardo / Bay Area News Group via AP, file)
According to USA Today, San Diego Gas & Electric has unplugged about 24,000 people, with 73,000 others under safety shutdown notices.
Today, 130,000 customers risk being literally left in the dark – including five tribal communities – as of Monday. SF Gate noted Friday that if households consist of an average of three people, up to 260,000 Californians could be affected.
In the wine region of northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 8,500 homes could also be cut off.
In a tweet and accompanying statement, PG&E said alerts were sent to warn people on Friday.
“High fire risk conditions are expected to arrive late Sunday evening with high winds expected to continue through Monday morning, peaking overnight Monday, and possibly persisting in some areas until early morning. Tuesday, “the utility wrote.
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“Once the strong winds have subsided, the PG&E team will patrol the de-energized lines to ensure they have not been damaged during inclement weather. PG&E will safely restore power as quickly as possible, with the aim of restoring most customers within 12 hours of daylight on weather conditions, ”they said.
The statement says the hot air creates tinder-like brush that could fuel forest fires.
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