Thousands Lose Power in SF During Record March Heat Wave

With temperatures pushing San Francisco close to 90 degrees and residents running fans to survive the heat, PG&E's grid buckled on the afternoon of March 20, knocking out power for thousands of customers across multiple neighborhoods in what the city is calling the latest in a pattern of unacceptable failures.

The unplanned outage hit at the worst possible moment. San Francisco was experiencing its hottest March in at least two decades, part of a rare heat wave gripping the entire U.S. West. The last comparable event was March 11, 2005, when downtown San Francisco hit a record 87 degrees Fahrenheit. On Tuesday, temperatures threatened to match that mark.

The timing compounded the risk for a city largely unequipped to handle the heat. "Most don't have air conditioning," said resident Jessica Ling, who described coping the only way available to her: "We have our fans going, our windows open, but we try to be outside as much as we can." At Crissy Field, dogs and sunbathers crowded the shoreline on the north end of the city as the Golden Gate Bridge shimmered in the distance. Dog walker Justyce Roliz captured the citywide mood, if not its danger: "It feels like summer already in March. That's crazy, but I love it."

Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Bay Area, put the conditions in plain terms. "It's unusual for San Francisco to get this hot this early," he said. The West-wide heat wave was simultaneously threatening Phoenix with its first-ever pre-March 26 reading above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and Las Vegas with its hottest March stretch on record.

For San Francisco officials, the March 20 outage was the final provocation. The city sent a formal letter to Patti Poppe, CEO of the PG&E Corp. parent company, announcing plans to seek a state investigation into what the letter described as a recurring problem. The letter cited the December fire at a PG&E substation that left about one third of the city without power during the weekend before Christmas as evidence of systemic failure, not isolated incidents.

"We intend to ask the California Public Utilities Commission to open an investigation into the recent events, with attention to the recurring nature of PG&E's failure to provide safe and reliable service in San Francisco," city officials wrote. The letter was signed by Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman and Dennis Herrera, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, as well as city leaders Lurie and Chiu.

Officials framed the requested California Public Utilities Commission inquiry as essential to forcing real accountability. "We believe that an investigation proceeding administered by the California Public Utilities Commission will provide an important public record and make factual findings to support necessary improvements in PG&E's service and ensure that those improvements are fully implemented as expediently as possible," the letter stated.

PG&E spokesperson Matt Nauman, in an email to the San Francisco Chronicle, said company leaders "appreciate" the letter. "We remain committed to working in partnership with the City, and will support any actions directed by the CPUC for the benefit of the customers we are privileged to serve," Nauman said.

Whether the CPUC will open a formal investigation, and what infrastructure changes might follow, remains to be determined. The cause of the March 20 outage itself has not been publicly disclosed.