With temperatures in the hundreds and record high power use, people across the state experienced power outages last weekend throughout the beginning of the week, and Pleasanton was no different. During the weekend, as temperatures soared well past 100 degrees, 115 customers in Pleasanton were without power, said PG&E spokesperson David Eisenhauer. Although, the actual number could be higher since Pleasanton shares a circuit with San Ramon, and San Ramon had thousands of outages, added another PG&E spokesperson Paul Moreno. In the Diablo area, which includes Pleasanton, Livermore, Dublin, San Ramon and Concord, 152,000 customers experienced power outages.
The Pleasanton Police Department said it received hundreds of calls during the weekend from residents who had lost power, mostly located in the northern end of town around Johnson and Fairlands drives, Pleasanton Meadows and in the Muirwood Community Park area. Residents around the downtown area were also affected, specifically at the intersection of Second and Neal streets and nearby Jensen Street. Areas of the Ruby Hill community were also affected.
Outages continued through Tuesday and as the heat kept pounding, with the situation calming by Wednesday as things began to cool off. On Monday, the state issued a Stage 2 alert, meaning companies voluntarily shed power to avoid more severe conditions. During the weekend, a Stage 1 alert was in effect where consumers were urged to voluntarily reduce their use of electricity. All this is an effort to prevent a Stage 3 emergency–better known as rolling blackouts.
In response to the heat wave and accompanying power outages, the city of Pleasanton extended the hours of the Senior Center and the Dolores Bengtson Aquatic Center during the week. Both facilities remained open until 9 p.m. with today being the last day of the extended hours. The Aquatic Center extended its general swim time and at the Senior Center, all Pleasanton residents could take advantage of the air conditioning and water was available, but city officials made it clear that it was not intended to be a shelter. The city also reminded residents that the library is open until 9 p.m., Monday through Friday and provides a cool shelter, as well.
Ellen and Eric Holmgren experienced outages throughout the weekend and into Monday at their home on White Hall Court in Pleasanton Meadows. Their power first went out on Saturday at 3 p.m. and was restored at 1:50 a.m. Sunday morning, only to go out again at 1 p.m. and then turn back on at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning. Thinking the outages were over, Eric went to work fixing the family’s computer Monday afternoon, only to have the power go out again while he was in the middle of the project.
“It seems that by the time the power goes on, it’s off again,” Ellen said. “They talk about preventing rolling blackouts, but I almost think it would be easier because at least if you knew it was coming you could prepare for it.”
With the heat wave and increased use, the equipment does not have a chance to cool down, leading to the power failures, Eisenhauer said.
“One of the problems with summer outages versus winter outages is that in winter, we have a power line go down and once it’s restored it will serve a lot of people, whereas when a transformer is down, there are a lot of transformers failing at once, so we can only serve a handful of customers,” Eisenhauer explained.
The Holgrens said one of their biggest complaints was dealing with PG&E’s automated phone line that gives estimated times for when power will be restored, which they found to be quite inaccurate. Eisenhauer agreed that the system can be flawed because a computer generates the estimated time, but does not take into account additional factors that may slow the power restoration. To find the most accurate predictions, it is best to monitor TV and radio news reports via battery-powered systems, Eisenhauer said.
PG&E urges everyone to reduce their power use during the heat to reduce the strain on the system. Some ways are to keep houses at 78 degrees or, in times of high demand, 82 degrees and do not use any unnecessary appliances until after 8 p.m., such as dishwashers, vacuums and washers and dryers.
