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NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Pacific Gas and Electric said Wednesday morning that it is moving forward with another public safety power shutoff in portions of the Sierra Foothills and North Bay, as well as small parts of San Mateo and Kern counties due to hot, dry and windy weather expected over the next few days.

The company said the decision was made based on weather conditions that pose a higher risk for damage and sparks on the electric system and rapid wildfire spread.

The shutoff is expected to impact approximately 179,000 customers in 17 counties: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Kern, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Sierra, Sonoma, Tehama and Yuba.

Approximately Lake County 1,895 customers – including 65 medical baseline customers – will be impacted in Cobb, Loch Lomond, Middletown and a small unincorporated area south of Kelseyville.

PG&E said the shutoffs are expected to begin around 2 p.m. in the Sierra Foothills, 3 p.m. in the North Bay counties – including southern Lake County – and approximately 1 a.m. Thursday in affected areas of San Mateo and Kern counties.

Forecasts indicate the peak period of winds should end about noon Thursday in the Sierra Foothills, North Bay and San Mateo County, and around noon Friday in Kern County.

Two community resource centers have been set up in Lake County for the event. They are located at Konocti Vista Casino, 2755 Mission Rancheria Road in Lakeport, and Twin Pine Casino & Hotel, 22223 Highway 29 in Middletown.

Restrooms, bottled water, electronic-device charging and air-conditioned seating for up to 100 will be available at these facilities. They will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday and will remain open for those hours for the duration of the outage.

Once the high winds subside, PG&E will inspect the de-energized lines to ensure they were not damaged during the wind event, and then restore power. PG&E will safely restore power in stages as quickly as possible, with the goal of restoring the vast majority of customers within 48 hours after the weather has passed.

The company said notified potentially impacted customers on Monday, 48 hours prior, and again on Tuesday, 24 hours prior, and will continue to notify, via automated calls, texts and emails – for those customers who’ve provided their contact information to PG&E.

PG&E said customers not impacted by the public safety power shutoff may experience power outages due to the company’s equipment damaged during this wind event; those customers will not be notified in advance.

It is also very possible that customers may be affected by a power shutoff even though they are not experiencing extreme weather conditions in their specific location, PG&E said. This is because the electric system relies on power lines working together to provide electricity across cities, counties and regions.
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Following utility-directed power shutoffs that impacted nearly two million Californians and ahead of another public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, decision by Pacific Gas and Electric, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday demanded that PG&E do more to provide information for customers and take action to reduce the number of customers impacted.

"While the immediate goal should be to better manage the current anticipated PSPS event, PG&E’s short-term objectives should include steps to ensure that as few people as possible are impacted by any future PSPS decision," wrote Gov. Newsom in his letter to PG&E CEO William Johnson.

Gov. Newsom urged the utility to adopt the directions of the California Public Utilities Commission and continued to extend the state’s technical and operational assistance – from providing forecasting and technological support to leveraging aircraft equipment and emergency personnel.

“I continue to extend the technical assistance currently offered by the State of California to reduce the impacts of PSPS, including operational guidance from Cal OES, meteorological data from Cal Fire, and most recently, infrared-equipped aircraft to assist in inspections of power line safety and the acceleration of power restoration,” wrote the governor. “Cal OES will activate State and Regional Operations Centers to respond appropriately and ensure continuity of state agency operations that support California residents.”

Following PG&E’s unprecedented PSPS earlier this month, the governor urged PG&E to provide affected customers an automatic credit or rebate of $100 per residential customer and $250 per small business as some compensation for their hardships.

Read the full letter to PG&E CEO Johnson below.

102219 Gov. Gavin Newsom Letter to PG&E CEO Bill Johnson by LakeCoNews on Scribd

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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for Lake County and much of the rest of interior Northern California that will be in effect from 5 a.m. Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday.

The fire weather watch came as Pacific Gas and Electric said Monday it was looking at another public safety power shutoff on Wednesday and Thursday for Lake and 14 other counties, as Lake County News has reported.

A fire weather watch means that critical fire weather conditions are forecast to occur, the National Weather Service said.

The forecast said a weather system digging into the Great Basin region will create gusty north to east winds over portions of interior Northern California Wednesday and Thursday.

Those winds, combined with low daytime humidity and low overnight humidity is expected to lead to critical fire weather conditions for the northern Coastal Range and foothills, the Sacramento Valley, portions of the northern San Joaquin Valley, and the Northern Sierra Nevada and foothills below 7000 feet.

In the fire watch area, the National Weather Service predicts north to northeast winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour with gusts of 30 to 40 miles per hour, with winds expected to be higher in canyons and exposed ridges.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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NICE, Calif. – A Tuesday afternoon structure fire near Robinson Rancheria left one person dead.

The fire was first dispatched shortly after 4:15 p.m. Tuesday at a home near the rancheria.

Firefighters arriving at the scene within minutes of dispatch found the stick-built home heavily involved with one person reported to be trapped and firefighters attempting a rescue.

Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio, who served as incident commander, confirmed to Lake County News that the person who was trapped died in the fire.

Ciancio said Northshore Fire was assisted at the incident by Cal Fire, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol.

Also responding was a task force of four engines and a water tender from Mendocino County that have been staged in Lake County this week due to red flag weather conditions and the possibility of a public safety power shutoff, Ciancio said.

He said he had no idea what started the fire. “It’s under investigation.”

Investigators were called to the scene on Tuesday evening to try to determine the cause, Ciancio said. “The investigation’s probably going to take awhile.”

Ciancio said fire personnel would probably be on scene all night.

“We have to secure the scene for preservation of any evidence in case there was a crime. At this point, we don’t think so,” he said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Pacific Gas and Electric said Tuesday evening that it is still deciding whether or not to call another public safety power shutoff that could impact hundreds of thousands of residents across the region, including several thousand in a portion of southern Lake County.

The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for much of Northern California for a hot and dry wind event expected to occur Wednesday and Thursday. The warning is in effect from 5 a.m. Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday.

PG&E said that a decision on whether or not to move forward with the shutoff will be made on Wednesday morning, with shutoffs to portions of the Sierra Foothills and North Bay expected to begin Wednesday afternoon and additional shutoffs in San Mateo and Kern counties to start early Thursday.

On Tuesday, the company said it had narrowed the scope of the potential shutdown to 189,000 customer accounts across 16 counties, a reduction of about 20,000 customers since Monday. That reduction is the result of changing weather information and PG&E's ability to sectionalize certain lines.

PG&E said a portion of south Lake County remains in the potential shutoff area.

On Tuesday, the estimated number of Lake County customers expected to be included in the proposed shutoff dropped by six to a total of 1,895 customers – including 65 medical baseline accounts – in Cobb, Loch Lomond, a small portion of Kelseyville and Middletown.

Since Monday, a small portion of Lake County residents near Upper Lake and along Highway 20 near the Lake and Mendocino County border have been removed from the potential outage area.

The customers in south Lake County and other parts of the North Bay in the proposed shutoff area could have power turned off beginning at 3 p.m. Wednesday, while those in the Sierra Foothills could experience a shutoff at 2 p.m. Groups of customers in San Mateo and Kern Counties would have power cut at 1 a.m. Thursday.

If the shutoff goes forward, a community resource center for Lake County will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday at Konocti Vista Casino, 2755 Mission Rancheria Road in Lakeport.

PG&E’s address lookup tool can help south county residents determine if their home or business is in the potential outage area.

During a Tuesday evening briefing, it was reported that PG&E’s new Web site – built to handle increased traffic loads after the shutoff earlier this month resulted in massive traffic that caused its other site to crash – had gone down twice on Tuesday morning.

PG&E Chief Executive Officer and President Bill Johnson said efforts have been made to fix the Web site so that it’s fully operational going forward.

On Tuesday evening, the site appeared to be working.

Mark Quinlan, PG&E’s senior director of emergency preparedness and response and the deputy incident commander, gave a situational update.

Quinlan emphasized that PG&E has still not called a shutoff and that it continues to monitor the weather, with a decision to be made on Wednesday morning.

He said that on Monday PG&E began notifying all customers expected to be impacted and notified them again today by phone, email and text messages.

The final decision to call the shutoff will be made in consultation with state agencies including the state Office of Emergency Services, Cal Fire and the California Public Utilities Commission, all of which have representatives in PG&E’s emergency operations center in San Francisco, Quinlan said.

Quinlan explained the shutoff times for the Sierra Foothills and North Bay were set to be ahead of the peak of the forecast wind event, expected to take place at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

If deenergization takes place, an all-clear is forecast for noon on Thursday. Quinlan said once the all-clear is given, PG&E’s crews would immediately begin patrolling on the ground and in the air in order to identify damage.

Following the shutoff earlier this month, 130 cases of damage – including trees and other vegetation into power lines – were identified by inspections throughout the outage area, Quinlan said.

So far, the damage inspection work has been limited to daytime hours. However, Quinlan said that on Tuesday night PG&E will be testing the use of a California Highway Patrol plane with LIDAR, which could allow infrastructure to be patrolled at night.

LIDAR, which stands for “light detection and ranging,” is a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed lasers to generate three-dimensional information.

“We’re looking forward to those results,” Quinlan said.

Johnson – who told the CPUC during a Friday hearing that public safety power shutoffs could be necessary for at least a decade while equipment is improved – said PG&E is monitoring still another dry wind event forecast for this weekend.

On Tuesday night, with that event still 100 or more hours away, Johnson couldn’t say if a shutoff would be the result.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Traffic collisions are the leading cause of death among teenagers, which is why the California Highway Patrol is continuing its partnership with Impact Teen Drivers, or ITD.

The traffic safety partners share the common goal of reducing the number of traffic collisions and teen traffic-related deaths in California.

Teenagers and motor vehicles can be a deadly combination. Young drivers are three times more likely than adults to be involved in a traffic collision due to distraction, and these crashes are 100-percent preventable.

Together, the CHP and ITD are using a grant-funded education program to have a positive impact on highway safety throughout California.

“Working with ITD, our goal is to change the behaviors of these inexperienced drivers by making them aware of the dangers and consequences of reckless and distracted driving,” said CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley.

The Teen Distracted Drivers Education and Enforcement IX grant campaign will focus on classroom education, community events, and active enforcement to change the mindset of teens and their parents, and to decrease the number of teen distracted driving traffic collisions and fatalities.

This yearlong, statewide campaign began Oct. 1, 2019, and will continue through Sept. 30, 2020.

“We lose 11 teens every day to preventable car crashes in the United States. In California alone, we lose the equivalent of eight school buses each year to this deadly epidemic. It is time we stop thinking these are just sad accidents and, instead, empower ourselves and our newest drivers with the knowledge, attitude, and skills needed to make our roads safer for all Californians. It will take all of us to stop the number one killer of teens,” said Dr. Kelly Browning, executive director, ITD.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County and much of Northern California have been placed under a red flag warning due to an incoming weather system expect to bring heavy winds.

The National Weather Service issued the warning for portions of interior Northern California from 8 a.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday.

The agency said a red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly.

Such warnings are issued in response to a combination of strong winds, low relative humidity, and warm temperatures that can contribute to extreme fire behavior.

The National Weather Service said a weather system digging into the Great Basin region will create gusty north to east winds over portions of interior Northern California Wednesday and Thursday.

Conditions are forecast to include low daytime and nighttime humidity.

The impacted areas include the northern Coastal Range and foothills, the Sacramento Valley, portions of the northern San Joaquin Valley, and the Northern Sierra Nevada and foothills below 7,000 feet.

North to northeast winds of 15 to 30 miles per hour with gusts of 35 to 45 miles per hour are forecast, with the potential for higher wind speeds in canyons and on exposed ridges.

In Lake County through the weekend, daytime temperatures are forecast to be into the mid 80s, with nighttime temperatures dropping into the high 40s and low 50s.

In the lower elevations, winds are expected to peak on Wednesday night in the high 20s, with wind speeds up to 20 miles per hour on Thursday, according to the local forecast.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – In the wake of its decision last week to release the district superintendent, the Middletown Unified School board held a special Monday evening meeting during which it decided to hire a retired superintendent to fill the job on an interim basis.

David Miller, who retired several years ago as superintendent in the Mendocino Unified School District, has been selected to fill the job while the district begins its search for a permanent successor to Superintendent Catherine Stone, according to Board President Sandy Tucker.

Stone’s four-year tenure with the district ended on Wednesday night after the board emerged from her closed session evaluation to announce they were releasing her from her contract, which runs until June, as Lake County News has reported.

Her contract requires the district to continue to pay her salary for the remainder of the term of the agreement, or for a period of 12 months, whichever period is shorter, if Stone is terminated without cause.

Stone will be paid for a year, according to her contract, Tucker said.

Tucker said the Monday evening special meeting had a 15-minute open session in addition to the hour-long closed session during which the interim superintendent’s hire was discussed.

“We were not able to vote to confirm the contract as it has to be agendized for open session,” she said.

The board has another special meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday to vote on Miller’s contract, Tucker explained.

In addition to his work in Mendocino County, Miller previously worked at Konocti Unified and Harmony Unified School District. He and his wife, Linda – who formerly worked in Middletown Unified – live in Cobb, Tucker said.

Miller is expected to begin work on either Friday or Monday, depending on how long it takes for the results of Live Scan fingerprinting to be completed, Tucker said.

While Miller fills the interim superintendent role, Tucker said the district plans to move forward immediately with recruiting Stone’s successor.

Tucker said they plan to post the job as soon as possible. The district will handle the recruitment but will have the support of the Lake County Office of Education.

After the board released Stone last week, Heather Rantala, director of business services, began overseeing district operations until the interim superintendent is in place.

On Monday, Pacific Gas and Electric said it is considering a public safety power shutoff beginning on Wednesday afternoon in response to an incoming wind event.

Tucker said that if power goes out, Rantala will make the call as to whether or not school will close.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Pacific Gas and Electric on Monday evening offered additional details about a potential public safety power shutoff that could come midweek and impact a portion of Lake County.

PG&E is once again considering the measure due to a strong wind event the National Weather Service is forecasting will move into interior Northern California.

The company said it anticipates the shutoff could begin Wednesday afternoon and impact 209,000 customer accounts across 16 counties. That’s about a third of the customers whose power was cut earlier this month across 35 counties.

Unlike the last shutoff, which covered all of Lake County and 37,400 customer accounts, the one that’s proposed for this week is expected to impact approximately 1,895 customers in Cobb, Kelseyville, Loch Lomond, Middletown and Upper Lake, including 65 baseline customers, according to PG&E.

A detailed map of the shutoff area can be found here or viewed above.

In addition to Lake, the impacted counties and the number of customers are: Alpine, 200; Amador, 13,131; Butte, 23,452; Calaveras, 14,586; El Dorado, 39,786; Mendocino, 862; Napa, 9,623; Nevada, 37,098; Placer, 18,773; Plumas, 785; San Mateo, 6,462; Sierra, 1,160; Sonoma, 33,613; Sutter, 229; and Yuba, 7,474.

PG&E President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Johnson told reporters in a Monday evening briefing that the company hadn’t yet decided on whether or not it would cut the power. That decision, Johnson said, is expected on Wednesday.

If the company moves forward with another shutoff, company officials said they will make notifications eight to 12 hours ahead of cutting power.

In the case of the North Bay, power could be cut starting at 2 p.m. Wednesday in order for deenergization to be complete by 5 p.m., the time the wind event is forecast to peak, company officials said.

PG&E said it activated its San Francisco-based emergency operations center on Sunday evening to monitor the weather event.

The forecast is showing the potential for strong and dry offshore wind gusts that may exceed 55 miles per hour late Wednesday evening through Thursday afternoon for portions of the Sierra Foothills, and gusts of 35 to 45 miles per hour for some North Bay counties, with some localized areas expected to experience 55 mile per hour gusts.

The wind event this week is forecast to be much smaller than the one two weeks ago, in which PG&E said it has identified more than 100 instances of serious damage and hazard on its distribution and transmission lines .

On Monday afternoon, the company said it began a 48-hour advance notification to customers who may be impacted by a shutoff beginning late Wednesday evening.

Michael Lewis, senior vice president of PG&E Electric Operations, emphasized that shutoffs are a safety measure.

“The sole purpose of PSPS is to significantly reduce catastrophic wildfire risk to our customers and communities. We know that sustained winds above 45 mph are known to cause damage to the lower-voltage distribution system and winds above 50 mph are known to cause damage to higher-voltage transmission equipment,” Lewis said in a written statement released by the company.

Two weeks ago, PG&E’s Web site sustained traffic at approximately 250 times its previous peak load, company officials told the California Public Utilities Commission at a special Friday afternoon hearing in San Francisco.

As a result, PG&E said it has created a new Web site to take on higher traffic volumes. It will provide address lookup for affected customers, community resource center locations as they become available and other PSPS event-related information. Online services such as energy bill payment, will be unavailable until after power has been restored.

The company said it also has strengthened its contact call center to better handle phone calls, will open community resource centers in affected counties on Wednesday and is working to strengthen its coordination with government agencies, in particular counties, cities and tribal governments in its service area.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council is seeking applications from Clearlake citizens for a seat on the Traffic Safety Committee.

Traffic Safety Committee members review traffic safety issues, street sign recommendations and requests, traffic control devices and requests and make recommendations to the Clearlake City Council with quarterly reports.

Applications are available at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive, on the city’s Web site at https://www.clearlake.ca.us/ or via email to Administrative Services Director/City Clerk Melissa Swanson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Clearlake City Council will consider applications at its Nov. 14 meeting.

Deadline for applications to be included in the council meeting packet is Nov. 7 at 5 p.m.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council this week is set to award the bid for the improvements to Austin Park, a project city leaders believe will create an important and engaging centerpiece for the community.

The council will meet beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.

At the start of the meeting, the council will meet October’s adoptable dogs from Clearlake Animal Control.

On the agenda is the council’s consideration of awarding the bid for Austin Park’s improvements to R&R Pacific Construction in the amount of $2,036,802.50.

Staff also is asking the council to authorize City Manager Alan Flora to approve change orders up to 10 percent of the contract amount.

The project will be built on 10 acres east of Lakeshore Boulevard and west of Uhl Avenue.

It includes an outdoor concert stage, six individual shade structures, new lawn and expansion of the current lawn area, a new irrigation system, a children’s play area, a fenced dog park, new lighting throughout the park, new parking lots on both the north and south side which include parking lot lighting, drinking fountains, new park benches and picnic tables, enhanced walking paths and Americans with Disability Act accessibility, and rehabilitation of the basketball and tennis courts, according to Consulting City Engineer David Swartz’s report to the council.

Swartz had estimated the base bid for the project at $1,609,900, with a bid additive alternative – for the portion of the project’s improvements on the west side of Lakeshore Drive – at $231,100.

Swartz’s report explains that R&R Pacific Construction was the lowest of three bidders, with a base bid estimate of $2,716,072.50 and bid additive alternative of $333,485.00.

The second-highest bidder was CWS Construction Group Inc., $3,395,140.15 for the base bid and $459,157 for the bid additive alternative.

The highest bidder, Team Ghilotti Inc., estimated the base bid at $3,815,305.85 and the bid additive alternative at $516,599.

“The City was able to negotiate a small number of times to reduce the total contract amount with R&R Construction from $2.7 million to $2,036,802.50,” Swartz wrote in his report. “The City will be actively participating with construction of this project by contributing approximately $306,000 towards the purchase of materials and public works staff will provide some installation support of some elements as installing park lighting, planting new trees, erecting shade structures, etc.”

At this time there have not been enough funds identified to include the bid additive alternate portion of the project. “The City will pursue funding for this portion of the project at a later time, “ Swartz wrote.

Swartz said the city currently has available funding of $2.365 million for the project in addition to the $100,000 contribution of Adventist Health Clear Lake. “Other contributors have also been
identified that will be supporting the completion of this invaluable community asset and will be revealed in the near future.”

If the council approves the bid award, construction is set to begin by the end of October and is scheduled to be completed by May 15, 2020, Swartz said.

In other business, council members will consider approving the report of delinquent public nuisance abatement costs and their collection on the tax roll. As part of that item, the council will hear and consider any protests to the proposed action and adopt a resolution confirming costs totaling $45,000.

Also on Thursday, the council will consider approving Mayor Russ Cremer’s appointment of a council member – unspecified in the staff report – to the Clean Water Program Management Council.

On the meeting's consent agenda – items that are not considered controversial and are usually adopted on a single vote – are warrant registers; minutes of the September council meetings; and continuation of a local emergency issued on Oct. 9, 2017, and ratified by council action on Oct. 12, 2017.

The council will have a closed session regarding existing litigation with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. after the public portion of the meeting.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

102419 Clearlake City Council agenda packet by LakeCoNews on Scribd

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A Pacific Gas and Electric Co. public safety power shutoff map approved as of 6:15 a.m. Monday, October 21, 2019, that shows areas in Lake and surrounding counties that could be impacted by a public safety power shutoff beginning on Wednesday, October 23, 2019.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Less than two weeks after Lake County was included in a regionwide public safety power shutoff conducted by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in response to a weather event, the company said Monday that another shutoff could take place this week that would impact portions of Lake County.

PG&E said it is considering activating the public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, beginning at about noon on Wednesday in response to a potentially strong, hot and dry offshore wind event Wednesday and Thursday.

The main period of weather risk is forecast to last about 18 to 24 hours, from Wednesday evening through mid-day Thursday. PG&E said the dry, windy weather pattern is expected to unfold across the Northern Sierra, Sacramento Valley and the North Bay.

While PG&E has not yet officially called a public safety power shutoff, company spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said it is monitoring a potential shutoff area that includes Lake and 14 other counties: Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Sierra, Sonoma, Sutter and Yuba.

Those areas have been placed under a “PSPS Watch,” indicating that there is a “reasonable chance of executing a PSPS to reduce public safety risk in a given geographic zone due to a combination of adverse weather and dry fuel conditions,” the company reported.

“We expect the potential PSPS may affect up to 209,000 customers across the 15 counties,” Contreras told Lake County News.

That’s compared to the more than 735,000 customer accounts – and more than two million Californians – in 35 counties officials said were impacted two weeks ago.

In the previous event, more than 37,400 Lake County customer accounts – or, all of Lake County – were impacted.

However, Sheriff Brian Martin said Monday that this time it appears about 2,000 customer accounts will be impacted.

On Monday afternoon, the Lakeport Police Department reported that PG&E had told city officials that the city of Lakeport is not anticipated to be included in the outage area.

Like Martin, the city also reported that it had received information that the impact would be limited to about 2,000 customers.

A PG&E outage map that the city of Lakeport provided Monday afternoon – at which point it wasn’t posted on the PG&E Web site – showed that the proposed shutoff areas are in the south county around Cobb and Middletown, and one small area north of Upper Lake along Highway 20 at the Lake-Mendocino County border.

Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora also told Lake County News Monday afternoon that there is not expected to be any impact to the city of Clearlake, with Cobb and Middletown the main focus.

The company said it activated its emergency operations center in San Francisco at 6 p.m. Sunday to monitor the wind event.

Contreras said the company continues to suggest that customers prepare for outages that could last longer than 48 hours.

PG&E said it will provide updates several times a day in the lead up to the potential shutoff.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

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