Rather be safe than sorry — Meteorologists at PG&E are monitoring a potential dry offshore wind event forecasted to start Tuesday evening, Aug. 17th, and may shut off power to reduce the chances of a fire incident.
Because of the likely wind event and current conditions, which includes extreme to exceptional drought and extremely dry vegetation, the power company has begun sending 48-hour advance notifications to customers in targeted areas where it may need to proactively turn the power off for safety to reduce the risk of wildfire from energized power lines.
PG&E states that this power shut-off could affect approximately 39,000 customers in small portions of 16 counties in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the North Coast, the North Valley, and the North Bay mountains. While the majority of customers—about 27,000—are in Butte and Shasta counties. G&E’s in-house meteorologists, as well as its Wildfire Safety Operations Center and Emergency Operations Center, continue to closely monitor conditions as they may change. Better to be safe than sorry.