Atmospheric River Event Expected to Hit Most of Northern and Central California on Sunday and Monday; PG&E Restoration Force of Thousands Ready to Respond to Potential Widespread Power Outages

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has thousands of workers including more than 500 electric and vegetation-management crews standing by to respond to potential widespread power outages caused by an early-season atmospheric river event that is expected to pound Northern and Central California beginning on Sunday morning.

In advance of the storm, PG&E vegetation-management crews are out today, working to keep trees away from powerlines during the forecasted wet and windy weather.

PG&E meteorologists, along with experts from the National Weather Service, forecast that the atmospheric river will push into the northern portions of the utility’s service area early on Sunday, then slowly advance south and east during the day Sunday and into Monday. It is expected to bring strong winds, heavy rainfall and high-elevation mountain snow. Maximum wind gusts across the valley floor could reach up to 45-55 miles per hour; gusts for elevated terrain could be 55-65 mph.

PG&E’s meteorology team uses a Storm Outage Prediction Model that incorporates real-time weather forecasts, coupled with 30 years of historical storm data and system knowledge to show where and when storm impacts will be most severe. This model enables the company to pre-stage crews and equipment as storms approach to enable rapid response to outages.

“The rain and snow from this October storm will bring much-needed relief to the drought-parched portions of our state. But, along with the heavy winds, it will also cause power outages. We know outages for any reason are frustrating and impactful for our customers, and we are ready to roll our fleet of blue trucks to respond safely and as quickly as possible. We won’t stop until the last impacted customer’s power is back on,” said Mark Quinlan, a PG&E Vice President and Incident Commander for the company’s readiness and response to this storm.

Restoration Workforce

PG&E activated its Emergency Operations Center on Thursday for advance planning ahead of the weekend storm, as well as regional and local emergency operation centers across the service area.

Saturday, PG&E began pre-staging crews across the service area. The utility has more than 500 electric transmission, electric distribution and vegetation-management crews already staged or prepared to respond to outages. Crews range from two to four workers. Additionally, 285 troublemen and women (first on site to an outage to determine cause and necessary repairs), and 285 inspectors are working this event. Another 400 PG&E personnel will be on 911 standby, available to respond to any outage where traffic control or other support is needed, and approximately 300 vegetation-management workers will be ready.