Power restored in Butte County after unexpected outage leaves over 1,000 in the dark

PG&E says they used both ground and aircrews to look for any reasons why the power was off but found none.

New tonight -- power is back on in butte meadows and forest ranch after an unscheduled pg&e outage kept the lights off for nearly 24 hours.

Action news now reporter esteban reynoso joins us now in studio.

Esteban, what's the latest on the cause of this power outage?

The cause for this unexpected power outage has not been determined yet -- but pg&e had just wrapped up their planned power safety shutoff yesterday in the early afternoon... when only a few hours later, the lights went off again in these areas of butte meadows and forest ranch.

I went to forest ranch and spoke to people about their frustrations dealing with another day -- unplanned -- without power.

"the power shutoffs are a pain, big time.

All of a sudden lights out, no forewarning no nothing."

"a lot of people don't have generators, a lot of people up here don't have money they can't afford a generator.

Some people have a medical issue, they need power.

So it's really a problem."

"more than an inconvience, as roger mentioned, it's actually could be life threatening for many people.

For us, for the animals it is.

We do have the generator, but our power was out for so long that it drained our propane tank.

So we had to pay an emergency delivery fee to the tune of 800 dollars.

Quite an inconvience."

"it's still a pain, when you don't have power, everything is on power nowadays."

"but i went through 25, 30 gallons of fuel in the past 4 days.

Is pg&e gonna reimburse me for that?

No."

"me personally, not to sing the blues, but since covid i've been out of work, and i'm trying to do a job search with no internet, i can't even send out applications, so it's been a huge inconvience."

"the power was lost due to some other interference that was going on.

Bear in mind this terrain is a bit difficult, it's mountainous, it's very forested, so it does take time."

"no cause has been determined, but we were able to restore customers, a few hundred at a time."

Pg&e says they used both ground and air crews to look for any reasons why the power was off.

...and they will bring in experts money they can't afford a generator.

Some people have a medical issue, they need power.

So it's really a problem."

"more than an inconvience, as roger mentioned, it's actually could be life threatening for many people.

For us, for the animals it is.

We do have the generator, but our power was out for so long that it drained our propane tank.

So we had to pay an emergency delivery fee to the tune of 800 dollars.

Quite an inconvience."

"it's still a pain, when you don't have power, everything is on power nowadays."

"but i went through 25, 30 gallons of fuel in the past 4 days.

Is pg&e gonna reimburse me for that?

No."

"me personally, not to sing the blues, but since covid