Overview
- More than 35,000 customers on the Central Coast woke up without power on Christmas morning, including about 18,755 in Monterey County and 16,309 in Santa Cruz County.
- PG&E attributed the outages to powerful winds that knocked down trees and lines, with the Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Peninsula sustaining the heaviest damage.
- Across California, PG&E said more than 8,000 employees and contract crews were deployed, following a staged safety, access, assessment, repair, and restoration process.
- The utility issued localized repair timelines, estimating one Monterey outage restored by 4:30 p.m. Thursday and service in Pacific Grove and Carmel by 11 p.m. Friday.
- Regional conditions evolved through the day with about 27,000 Bay Area customers out Thursday night and wind gusts reported up to 92 mph, while a flood watch persisted and roughly 9,200 Bay Area customers remained without power by early Friday; PG&E also coordinated with 211 and the California Foundation for Independent Living to support medically dependent customers.