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Severe Storm Knocks Out Power to 800,000 Northern California homes and Businesses |
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Wednesday, 14 October 2009 |
 Jackson - A storm that brought the second most rainfall in October history also knocked out power to approximately 800,000 homes and businesses in northern California on Tuesday afternoon. Winds of up to 50 miles per hour uprooted trees and felled power lines across Amador County. The Amador County Sheriff’s Office reported 16 separate storm-related incidents between 2:45 and 4 p.m. Tuesday. The storm was the remnants of super typhoon Melor, which ravaged Japan and Guam earlier this month. Storm-related outages included one caused from broken power lines at 12002 New York Ranch Road, which was caused by a snapped utility pole, under a fallen tree. Firefighter crews from Jackson and the Jackson Rancheria Casino blocked traffic at either sides of the road, including right at the main entrance to the casino, and at the intersection of China Graveyard Road. The power line was presumed live, and the crews waited until PG&E could respond. Emergency crews were also called to Highway 49, north of Plymouth, where a tree had fallen and blocked the entire road. Another live power line was knocked down by falling trees at Nooner Drive in Ione, across the road from Preston Castle. The brunt of the storm hit half of Main Street in downtown Jackson, including TSPN studios, where the lights went out at about 2 p.m. and power on one side of the street stayed out for the rest of the afternoon. According to the National Weather Service, Amador County and Sacramento received 3.04 inches of rain, the second highest amount behind Santa Rosa, which received 3.14 inches. Pacific Gas and Electric utility said it restored power to most of the 677,000 customers who lost power, but 91,000 customers were still in the dark Wednesday morning. Power outages reached 2,400 in Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador County by late Tuesday evening. PG & E reported the majority of power throughout Amador County would be restored by mid-Wednesday morning. Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which provides electricity to more than 590,000 customers in the state capital, said the storm knocked out more than 150,000 customers. As of Wednesday morning, 14,000 customers were still without power. The California Independent System Operator Corp (Cal ISO) reported Tuesday that a transmission emergency after the heavy rain and strong winds felled a 500-kilovolt power transmission bringing power from southern California. The line outage reduced the amount of power that could flow on Path 15 to about a third of what it can carry, Cal ISO said in a release. CAL ISO said the transmission pipeline was repaired around 10 pm Tuesday night. In Southern California and Santa Cruz, homeowners recently threatened by summer forest fires piled sandbags to ward off mudslides from the surrounding hills stripped of vegetation. Story by Alex Lane and Jim Reece.
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