Get ready for the big blackout – March 3, 2010
Kevin L. Hoover
Eye Editor
ARCATA – You may have received in the mail, and summarily tossed, another one of those “planned outage” notices from PG&E last week. And who could blame you? The outages usually occur when you aren’t home, like mid-Wednesday morning, and only last a few hours. That is, when they aren’t cancelled altogether.
But this one is different.
If you have seen the scale of the work project underway at the PG&E substation at Sixth and I streets the past week, you have an idea of the magnitude of the outage to come – it’s a whopper.
The weekend of March 13 and 14, power will go out in large portions of Arcata and environs for up to 22 hours, forcing some 6,392 customers to give up today’s popular electrified obsessions such as Friendster and Reba and somehow find comparably interesting off-line amusements.
The blackout, which PG&E spokesperson Jana Morris said will be “a small part of a larger project” to modernize local power distribution facilities, will hit Saturday afternoon and last through Sunday morning.
Expect the lights to go out beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 13 and stay off until as late as the next day, Sunday, March 14 at noon. The actual work at the substation, which involves swapping out old and outdated equipment with new, will take place between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The actual outage period in any given location will likely be shorter than 22 hours.
The shutdown won’t occur all at once, but in stages over a six-hour period, so times are uncertain. “People believe we can flip a switch and cut power off, but that’s not how it works,” Morris said.
While businesses, government and individuals are bound to be affected by the outage, Morries said the utility tries to minimize impacts. Its service and sales personnel communicate with large businesses, chambers of commerce and other entities to minimize impacts. One example, she said, was awareness of fundraising events for organizations such as volunteer fire departments.
One big pre-planned shutdown is, she said, generally preferred by restaurants to several smaller ones. “When we have to do an outage potentially this long in duration, it’s to prevent multiple small outages,” she said. “We do undertand that it’s going to inconvenience people, but it has to be done.”
“We’re hoping this will improve service in Arcata and McKinleyville,” Morris said.
Affected areas
Southeast Arcata: Including Fickle Hill, Sunny Brae, Buttermilk Lane and Old Arcata Road south to Highland Street.
West Arcata: Arcata Bottom west of V Street and north of Vassaide Road to the Mad River.
Central Arcata: From Sixth Street north along the Alliance Road corridor to Simpson Lane, between I and Q streets.
McKinleyville: West of Central Avenue including McKinleyville Avenue from the Mad River north to Murray Road.
