Silicon Valley Power (SVP) or its employees get a much needed reprieve from the rain after today. Crews have worked around the clock to restore power to the thousands of people impacted by downed power lines and blown transformers. On Wednesday morning, the utility happily declared that power was restored to all customers.
Crews worked long hours in wet weather to deal with the damage caused by the weekend storms.
According to Santa Clara’s Chief Public Information Officer Janine De la Vega, there were more than 20 outages citywide, affecting approximately 20,000 customers. The sheer number of issues, coupled with the continued storm, hampered the progress of the normally speedy SVP.
“The quantity of power outages at the same time due to the severity of the wind was a major challenge. Field crews and supporting staff worked around the clock to restore power,” said De la Vega. “Our Public Works Department was also busy. Our crews responded to 92 calls for service involving trees.”
While rain is in the forecast for Wednesday, the following days are expected to be dry with light winds. That will give SVP time to rest and regroup.
“As with most City responses of this nature, staff came together afterwards for a debrief to ensure that the City remains prepared for events like this,” said De la Vega. “We see this debrief as a learning opportunity to evaluate how we can continue to best serve our community.”
SVP has good experience with these situations already. Last winter year around this time, SVP dealt with a different round of storms, restoring power just as quickly.
Santa Clara’s power utility wasn’t the only one scrambling to get power restored in less than ideal conditions. Tens of thousands of PG&E customers across the state lost power and some still don’t have it.
To track current power outages in Santa Clara, visit SVP’s website at www.siliconvalleypower.com and search “Outages.”
