Though many were quick to think there was something more nefarious going on Friday when multiple major cities experienced significant power outages (or just Mercury retrograde?), the FBI and PG&E confirmed late Friday that no, SF's outage was just the result of a catastrophic equipment failure. Specifically, a circuit breaker failure led to an electrical fire at the utility's substation at Larkin and Eddy Streets, which knocked out power to 88,000 customers in the northern third of the city, including much of the Financial District and one major downtown BART station. Now Mayor Ed Lee is expected this week to call for a formal review of all SF's substations, as the Examiner reports, even though the Larkin substation is already set to have a $100 million upgrade later this year.
Some may recall that this same substation got knocked out during a winter storm in December 2014, causing a day-long blackout for many of the same neighborhoods affected on Friday.
The biggest impacts for most people were traffic- and work-related, with the morning commute also majorly disrupted as the blackout occurred at 9:15 a.m. Remarkably, only 20 rescue calls had to be made by the SFFD with people trapped in elevators, given the sheer number of elevators that likely had people in them at that hour. And no major injuries connected to the outage were reported.
In total, PG&E took about eight hours to fully restore power, though about a quarter the homes and businesses affected had power back by mid-afternoon.
The SFMTA reported that about one third of the city's 1200 traffic lights were also affected.
Below, the press conference Mayor Lee gave Friday afternoon alongside PG&E spokesman Barry Anderson.
Related: PG&E Website Shows Only One Outer Sunset Home Affected During Mass Power Outage