Overview
- Unplanned outages swept west and central San Francisco on Saturday, cutting electricity to roughly one-third of the city’s PG&E customers across neighborhoods including the Presidio, Richmond, Sunset and areas around Golden Gate Park.
- The San Francisco Fire Department responded to a one‑alarm blaze inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission, calling it a contributing factor to the wider blackout; firefighters used carbon dioxide to extinguish the fire and reported no injuries.
- Transit was disrupted as BART closed Powell Street and Civic Center stations before reopening, Muni bypassed underground stops and rerouted service, and Waymo temporarily suspended its driverless taxi operations.
- By early evening, PG&E said the grid was stabilized and reported nearly 98% of affected customers restored, with crews continuing repairs on remaining outages and no expectation of additional cascading failures.
- City officials activated emergency operations and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel, treat dark signals as four‑way stops, keep refrigerators closed to prevent spoilage and avoid using generators or grills indoors due to carbon monoxide risks.