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Uploaded: Monday, March 23, 2009, 1:40 PM
Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009, 2:38 PM
Two power outages hit Palo Alto Sunday
Fallen tree sparks first outage
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A fallen tree and downed powerlines from gusty winds blacked out 26 Palo Alto homes Sunday afternoon and evening, and a second outage of undetermined cause knocked out power to another 1,469 customers in the evening, city officials reported Monday.
The city has revised its numbers of customers affected as it has gotten additional data.
City Communications Manager Linda Clerkson said the first outage was reported at 12:45 p.m. when there was a report of wires down at Alma Street and El Dorado Avenue from a fallen tree.
She said crews were called at 12:47 p.m. and arrived at the scene at 2 p.m. to find a fallen tree. Additional utilities and a city tree crew were called to try to restore power to an area roughly bounded by El Dorado to Oregon Expressway and from Alma to Waverley Street.
It took until midnight to completely restore power to all homes, Clerkson reported.
While crews were working to repair the tree damage, at 6:48 p.m. a second outage occurred affecting 1,489 homes -- due to an as-yet-unknown cause, Clerkson reported.
At 7:34 p.m., 490 customers were restored to power, at 8:23 p.m., 970 more customers had power back. By 10:15 p.m. four more homes had power back and at 10:43 p.m. the last five homes were restored to power, she reported.
The area impacted by the second outage was roughly bounded by East Meadow Drive to El Carmelo Avenue and Alma to Waverley streets.
No city utilities officials were available Sunday afternoon or evening to provide information about what was happening. A recording on the electric utilities number said only that crews were working to restore power and as of 7 p.m. it was expected to take four hours.
Several intersection signals were also out -- someone put up temporary stop signs in traffic cones at Middlefield and East Meadow and later added small flashing red lights.
"They have not advised us" about the outage or estimate of repairs, an emergency dispatch operator for the city said, indicating they had no information to give out.
The electric power phone number had a recording that stated that the utility department was aware of the outage and to "call back in an hour" for possible more information. It asked people to leave a message if they heard a loud bang.
Nearly 2,000 south Palo Alto homes lost power for nearly two hours March 5 when a duck flew into a power line just before dawn along Colorado Avenue.-- Palo Alto Weekly staff
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Posted by High-lift truck spotter, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 22, 2009 at 11:20 pm Correction: the two large utility trucks were working behind a short apartment building on Alma Street between East Meadow and Oregon Expy. I don't recall exactly where, but I did see a bright light around the cherry picker at around 8pm, when I drove by. The trucks had been there when I drove by around 5:30pm.
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Posted by qq, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Mar 23, 2009 at 4:13 am This is probably related to the tree that fell into the power lines on Alma Sunday afternoon. I think it was around 2PM or so at 2840 Alma. It was kinda sad as PAPD got the call, but PAFD fire was all maxed out on resources and couldn't respond. PAPD had to page CPAU, which was not answering at first, but then got a response. With a storm blowing in on Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, you would think CPAU would have a skeleton crew on hand for any wind related emergencies.
Web Link
qq
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Posted by patricia, a resident of Los Altos, on Mar 23, 2009 at 9:46 am North Los Altos lost power for about 2 hours on Saturday morning...no explaination either.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 23, 2009 at 10:53 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online You had a choice - reliable and cheap, or green. You chose green.
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Posted by green, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Mar 23, 2009 at 12:34 pm Hi Walter... what does green have to do with a downed power pole? Just curious.
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Posted by windy, a resident of the Ventura neighborhood, on Mar 23, 2009 at 6:39 pm Maybe Walter thinks the City's green power source is all wind- thus knocking out the power lines!
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 23, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Palo Alto hires people to make a statement rather than to run the shop.
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Posted by windy, a resident of the Ventura neighborhood, on Mar 23, 2009 at 9:24 pm Walter,
What about the crews working for 5 hours to fix the outage?
What would electric rates be if 100% was undergrounded to avoid wind-caused outages? It would be cheaper to cut down all the trees.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 24, 2009 at 2:43 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Replacing failed cables is more difficult than resetting and restringing overhead. Better management might have trimmed the tree before the storm or reduced the severity and length of the outage. Had they heeded my call years ago to change to remote reading they would have immediately been aware of the magnitude of the outage. A utility is not a plaything.
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Posted by casey, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 24, 2009 at 9:11 am
casey is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Why does it take over 1 hour for crews to respond to downed power lines?
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Posted by Lois, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 24, 2009 at 12:02 pm If residents would cut down trees and trim back branches near utility wires we wouldn't have outages.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 24, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Utilities usually have contractors keep trees away from wires.
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Posted by dfgh, a resident of the Meadow Park neighborhood, on Mar 24, 2009 at 4:00 pm power lines need to be underground
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Posted by Rick Kaplowitz, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 24, 2009 at 4:15 pm We heard a VERY loud sound -- like metal grinding on metal, like an iron rod in a disposal, much amplified -- at El Carmelo and Emerson.
Someone who had been outside at the time said it seemed like the overhead wire just exploded. Folks at the office, when a couple of minutes after the called, said that a transformer had blown.
They had it fixed within 2 hours or so.
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Posted by Paul, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 29, 2009 at 5:19 pm I am probably the resident who called Utilities at 12:45pm last Sunday. We heard a loud bang on the power pole next to out carport (El Dorado & Alma) and initially thought a transformer had blown up. Then I noticed a wire was down between that pole and the one next (South), and all lines down between the 2nd and 3rd pole. The lines run parallel to Alma, but behind the first row of apartment homes. A Utilities truck came an hour later, and they sent more trucks immediately. We got power back at 10pm, while they were still working on that 3rd pole.
I am not sure what the rules are for trimming branches, but this power line is not next to any street, and within private property. A branch brought the line down when it fell, so trimming would not have helped anyway. The tree did not fall, though 2 days later they chopped it completely. Probably a sick tree...
I think the Utilities response time was very decent. There was a lot of work involved on at least three power poles and I can understand that it took them 9 hours to fix things. People got Comcast cable very quickly too, but I had to wait 3 days to get my AT&T (and DSL) line back. Now, that is unacceptable service, and I will let them know loud and clear!
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