Much of northern Santa Barbara County was hit with a power outage Sunday night after equipment failures crippled Pacific Gas & Electric Co.‘s Central Coast transmission system.
At the peak, some 145,000 customers on the Central Coast were without power, said company spokeswoman Jan Morris.
As of 11:50 p.m., that number had been reduced to 112,000, Morris said, and social media reports indicated power was slowly being restored throughout the region.
The company sent out a Twitter message at 12:25 a.m. indicating the number of customers without power had been reduced to 48,000.
A PG&E outage map indicated customers were in the dark from Solvang to Atascadero.
Southern California Edison customers on the South Coast were not affected.
The Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management said it was monitoring the outage, which struck customers in Lompoc, Santa Maria and much of the Santa Ynez Valley.
The outage, which began around 9:30 p.m., involved equipment failures at multiple substations, Morris said.
The California Utilities Emergency Association told county officials that the PG&E power outage was due to a “flash” at a sub-station at Morro Bay, resulting in a loss of transmission to several substations. The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant was not affected.
“Our crews are testing the lines to be sure it’s safe to restore power,” Morris said.
PG&E expected to restore all power by midnight, county officials said.
PG&E officials were providing some updates on the company’s Twitter account.
At one point, PG&E’s outage map indicated that nearly 42,600 customers in Santa Maria were without power, with nearly 10,000 more in the Santa Ynez Valley.
The Lompoc Police Department reported that all of Lompoc was in the dark.
Check back with Noozhawk for more information.
— Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen can be reached at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.