Bay Area hit with another round of rain-storm related PG&E power outages

SAN FRANCISCO - Pacific Gas and Electric has been busy keeping up with weather-related power outages. On Wednesday evening, rain storms once again left tens of thousands of customers in the dark. 

As of 9 p.m. a total of 10,922 Bay Area customers are without power. This is down from 14,360 an hour earlier. The bulk of those affected are in the East Bay, where more than 8,000 customers are experiencing outages. 

Just four hours earlier, the utility had whittled its previous round of outages from Wednesday morning down to a total of 1,769 customers. At its peak, more than 5,000 customers were without power. 

San Francisco had largely avoided the outages, but this evening PG&E reports outages there have now grown to 1,072 customers in the city who are impacted. 

This morning a PG&E spokesperson said people lost power due to issues related to the stormy weather, but the exact cause remained under investigation. This evening there were no updates on whether or not an exact cause had been pinpointed in the morning outages or for the new round of evening outages. 

The utility said their meteorologists are tracking storms moving through the region over the next 10 days as well as an atmospheric river headed our way Sunday into Monday. 

PG&E reminds to have batteries on hand, use generators safely, and to use flashlights (not candles) in the event of a power outage. You should also have a back-up phone (like a cell phone) for emergencies if you have a phone that relies on electricity, such as a cordless phone, they said.