LAKE COUNTY ? Severe weather wreaked havoc in the south county area Monday evening. High winds and heavy rain amid a fierce electrical storm resulted in downed power lines causing multiple outages in the Middletown/Cobb Mountain area.
Lightening also caused the temporary displacement of a Clearlake family after a bolt touched down, damaging a meter box and blowing out the sub-panel in a residence on Pacific Avenue.
According to PG&E spokesperson Jana Morris, as many as 1,391 customers in the Middletown/Cobb Mountain area were without power late Monday into Tuesday evening. She said there may have been other sporadic outages that did not register on the monitoring system as well.
Morris said the largest outage affected 1,000 customers in the Middletown area. Power was disrupted at approximately 4:45 a.m. due to trees coming in contact with power lines. Power was expected to be restored by about 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Another outage in the area of Pine Grove and Bottle Rock Road cut power to 311 customers at approximately 1:40 a.m. Morris said this was the most complex of all the outage situations. She said a fallen tree broke a power pole, which downed multiple spans of wires. “This one looks like a complex repair job, roughly 16 hours,” she said. “They have to replace one pole, four cross arms, multiple spans of wire and other equipment.”
Power in the Pine Grove/Bottle Rock Road outage was expected to be restored by about 6 p.m. Tuesday. Broken power poles were also suffered in the Lower Lake area. Morris said that 40 customers lost power at 9:18 p.m. Monday in the areas of Perini Road and Seigler Canyon Road. Power was expected to be restored by 5 p.m.
Another 33 were out in the areas of Cobb, Loch Lomond, Black Oak Drive and Observation Road. Power was restored in that area at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday.
“We have crews assigned and dedicated to Lake County. When the crews are finished on one repair they are moving on to the next,” Morris said. “We plan year round to make sure when big weather patterns like this come around, we are prepared.”
Lake County Fire Protection District (LCFD) responded to a residence on Pacific Avenue near the end of the approximate 20-minute lightening storm Monday night. Battalion Chief George Murch said it appeared that there was some type of lightening strike either to the residence or the power pole outside. “It damaged the meter box, the power pole and blew out the sub-panel in the residence,” he said. “The house filled up with smoke. We investigated for about and hour and determined it was probably from the sub-panel. We pulled the meter and secured the house and the residents found another place to stay for the night.”
Murch offered safety tips for staying safe during a lightening storm. He said people should remain in their homes, avoid playing video games, using land-line phones and electrical appliances or any other device with electrical components.
“If power lines are down, stay in the house unless there is a fire,” Murch said. “Watch out for metal gates and watch where you step. You don”t want to step on a downed line. Just because lines are not arcing doesn”t mean that they aren”t charged. Even if it appears to be a phone line, it could be laying over another line.” Murch said in severe weather conditions people should be prepared for delayed response by emergency personnel and utility crews. “In a severe weather event people want to make sure that have provisions because it may take us a while to get there,” he said, adding that delay could be caused by multiple requests for response, impassable road conditions or other unavoidable obstacles.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, severe weather patterns are expected to continue for the next two weeks. In preparation of the incoming storm systems, the Lake County Sheriff”s Office of Emergency Services has developed staffing patterns to serve the County Emergency Operations Center if needed. Lake County Public Works and Caltrans have pre-positioned resources to respond in the event of localized flooding. PG&E has also pre-positioned resources to respond to power outages when needed. The PG&E outage hotline number is 800-743-5002.
Contact South County reporter Denise Rockenstein at drockenstein@clearlakeobserver.com or call her directly at 994-6444, ext. 11.
