Community Corner
UPDATED: Number of Campbell, San Jose Residents Without Power Upped to 9,500
The outage was reported at 1:42 p.m.
Written by Bay City News Service
*Updated 7:12 p.m.
About 9,500 PG&E customers are without power in the South Bay this
afternoon in a series of outages caused mainly by the increased use of air
conditioners in the summer heat, a PG&E spokeswoman said.
About 1,400 customers had their power restored as of about 5:15 p.m., PG&E officials said.
Find out what's happening in Campbellwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The latest outage was reported at 4:45 p.m. affecting about 5,400 people in San Jose, PG&E spokesman Nicole Liebelt said.
That added to the 4,100 people without power elsewhere in San Jose and Campbell this afternoon, Liebelt said.
Find out what's happening in Campbellwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
PG&E believes most of the outages can be traced to air conditioning units being turned up as residents try to stay cool, Liebelt said.
"We're in a heat wave," Liebelt said.
Outages like the latest one are to be expected when people get home from work between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. and turn on their air conditioners, Liebelt said.
The National Weather Service, which reported a temperature of 91 degrees in San Jose at 4 p.m., today extended an excessive heat warning for the San Francisco Bay Area through Thursday.
The weather service warned of "dangerously hot" temperatures in the 90s to 110 degrees in inland areas through the period.
PG&E is "back feeding" or rerouting power to all customers who are experiencing outages late this afternoon, Liebelt said.
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More than 2,100 PG&E customers are without power in the South Bay this afternoon because of a series of outages, at least one of which might have been caused by the increased use of air conditioners in the summer heat, a PG&E spokeswoman said.
The latest outage was reported at 1:42 p.m. and is affecting neighborhoods including stretches of Monroe Street and San Tomas Expressway in southwest San Jose and parts of northern Campbell, PG&E spokesman Nicole Liebelt said.
The cause is still being investigated but PG&E believes it might be traced to air conditioning units being turned up as residents try to stay cool, Liebelt said.
PG&E crews are also investigating what caused an earlier series of outages in San Jose that has knocked out power to about 1,532 customers, Liebelt said. The first of those outages was reported 12:52 p.m.
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