A series of powerful rainstorms starting hitting the Bay Area on Wednesday morning, dumping up to 8 inches of rain on parts of the region, and by Thursday night the wind and rain were picking up big-time.
To help residents prepare for stormy weather, PG&E is offering the following safety tips:
Preparing for Power Outages
- Have battery-operated flashlights and radios with fresh batteries ready. Listen for updates on storm conditions and power outages.
- If you have a telephone system that requires electricity to work (such as a cordless phone or answering machine), plan for alternate communication - have a standard telephone handset, cellular telephone or pager ready as a back up.
- Freeze plastic containers filled with water to make blocks of ice that can be placed in your refrigerator/freezer during an outage to prevent foods from spoiling.
Safety Tips
- Treat all downed power lines as if they are "live" or energized. Keep yourself and others away from them. Call 911, then notify PG&E at 1-800-743-5002. Making contact with a downed power line could be fatal.
- Use battery-operated flashlights, not candles.
- Customers with generator should make sure they are properly installed by a licensed electrician. Improperly installed generators pose a significant danger to our crews.
- Unplug or turn off all electric appliances to avoid overloading circuits and fire hazards when power is restored. Simply leave a single lamp on to alert you when power returns. Turn your appliances back on one at a time when conditions return to normal.
Report a Power Outage: 1-800-743-5002
- Before calling PG&E about a power outage, check to see if other neighbors are affected. This would confirm if an outage has occurred in just your residence or within the neighborhood area.
- If only your residence is without power, check circuit breakers and/or fuse boxes to see if the problem is limited to the home electric system.
- After performing the steps above, single or neighborhood outages can be reported to: PG&E's 24-Hour Emergency and Customer Service Line: 1-800-743-5002
- Once your outage has been reported, you can call PG&E's Outage Information Line at 1-800-743-5002 to get a status report on your outage and the anticipated time your power will be turned back on.
- If you lose power overnight, you can call PG&E to request a wake-up call. We'll be happy to give you a wake-up call, as well as up-to-date information on your outage and time of restoration.
