U.S. San Francisco Bay Area suffers worst power outage in decades

SAN FRANCISCO, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The San Francisco Bay Area in the western U.S. state of California has suffered the worst power outage in almost three decades, Pacific Gas &Electric Co. (PG&E) said on Wednesday.

An atmospheric river arrived in Northern California Tuesday morning, bringing heavy rains and high wind throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Some 450,000 customers were affected and at its peak, 367,000 were without power, according to PG&E.

By Wednesday noon, about 80,000 customers in the South Bay and 35,000 on the Peninsula were still lacking electricity.

Sumeet Singh, the company's vice president of operations and chief operating officer, said that Tuesday brought the 13th major storm event of the season, calling it "the most impactful storm that we have seen in terms of customers out in a single day in the Bay Area, since 1995."

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, gusts hit 97 mph on Tuesday. The downed trees toppled many power lines, and 5,500 PG&E personnel were on the ground in restoration efforts Wednesday, according to PG&E Vice President of Emergency Preparedness and Response Angie Gibson.