More than 14,000 Pacific Gas and Electric were without power for a time Saturday, including a citywide power outage in Lompoc, authorities said.
The Lompoc Police Department released a statement Saturday, which indicated that power transmission into the city from PG&E lines was down with no estimate as to when power would be restored.
The widespread outage also caused outages to 911 services in certain areas of the county, according to Raquel Zick, spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
According to the PG&E outage map, there were 59 total outages in the county affecting 14,371 customers as of Saturday afternoon. More than 5,500 customers were affected in Lompoc, as well as 4,588 customers in Buellton. Some 2,451 customers were affected in Los Olivos, 956 in Orcutt and 772 in Santa Maria, according to the power company.
The outages occurred after the California Independent System Operator declared a Stage 2 electrical emergency due to excessive heat driving up electricity use and putting a strain on the state’s electrical grid.
— Mitchell White