Tiburon Peninsula hit with PG&E blackouts

Tiburon residents filled the Tiburon Police Department’s Emergency Operations Center and other rooms on Oct. 28 as the town used the department as a recharging station for residents during Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s public safety power shutoff, which began late Oct. 26. Below left, Tiburon resident Ben Morrell, along with his daughters Piper (left) and Cleo, took advantage of the station, as schools were also closed. (Hannah Weikel photos / The Ark)

Residents of Tiburon, Belvedere and Strawberry joined the nearly 3 million people across 37 California counties whose power was deliberately shut down by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. late Oct. 26. But more than two days later, just as power was starting to come back online, PG&E announced the area could be included in a second round of shutoffs slated for some time Tuesday, Oct. 29, after The Ark’s press deadline.

By nightfall Oct. 28, power had been restored to some pockets of the peninsula, allowing several businesses to reopen Oct. 29 — though most residents and businesses, including Tiburon Town Hall and Belvedere City Hall, remained without power.

Pointing to back-to-back extreme-wind events, in which gusts had reached 102 mph in Sonoma County and 48 mph in Tiburon during the first outage, PG&E had announced it would cut power for the second time this week — this time to about 1.8 million people, including across the Tiburon Peninsula — on Oct. 29.

In the North Bay, the National Weather Service had issued a red-flag warning for high fire danger, saying offshore gusts of up to 65 mph were expected to hit later that day and die down by today, Oct. 30.

By early Oct. 29, PG&E said Marin would go dark about 11 p.m. It later said the announcement was a mistake and that it had already begun de-energizing lines at 7 a.m. By noon, PG&E said winds had shifted and that Marin was not be part of the second round of shutoffs at all.

By The Ark’s press time, PG&E officials had said they’d be working to restore power on the Tiburon Peninsula throughout the day Oct. 29 while they monitored wind conditions; if winds shifted, Marin would be back on the shutoff list.

If power does go out again, the utility will use ground crews and helicopters to inspect lines mile by mile for wind or tree damage, a process that could take up to 48 hours after the severe winds pass, or as late as Nov. 1.

PG&E takes extreme measures

The utility says its public safety power shutoff events are an effort to prevent its equipment from sparking deadly wildfires during dry, blistering winds.

PG&E’s equipment was blamed for a string of deadly blazes in 2017 and 2018 — including last November’s Camp Fire in Butte County, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history and the year’s most expensive natural disaster globally. The fire killed at least 85 people, destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings over 230 square miles and caused an estimated $16.5 billion in damage. The same month, PG&E filed for bankruptcy with wildfire liabilities of $30 billion.

Company CEO Bill Johnson has said it could take the utility 10 years to improve its system enough that shutoffs will no longer be necessary. But even with them, the utility admitted in federal court earlier this month that its equipment had likely caused at least 10 wildfires this year. That was before the utility was linked just this week to the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, which has burned 115 square miles and is just 15 percent contained, and two small fires in Lafayette.

The Kincade Fire, along with the Tick Fire in Los Angeles, have prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide state of emergency. A Tiburon ambulance deployed to Santa Rosa to help with evacuations over the weekend had returned, as well as a crew dispatched to the Kincade Fire last week, according to Tiburon Fire Protection District Executive Assistant Nicole Chaput. Another crew and fire engine were deployed out to the fire on Oct. 27.

Locally, residents have been frustrated by the ripple effects of the outages: stores are running out of ice, gas stations are shutting down entirely, traffic lights are dark and generators went down at several local businesses and at Tiburon Town Hall, which had been set up as a charging station for residents.

Comcast customers reported they couldn’t use the internet and home WiFi networks or cable-based home voice-over-internet phones, even with generators. Most then turned to their cellphone-service providers, further congesting voice and internet service that was already spotty at best — all as local public-safety officials and PG&E representatives were referring customers to the web for details on the outages and when power may be restored. Many couldn’t receive PG&E’s text and voice alerts warning of the second outage.

Comcast has since announced that it’s opening up its “xfinity-labeled Wi-Fi hotspots to everyone in range of one, including nonsubscribers, to help people stay online.

According to a Federal Communications Commission report, more than one-third of the 270 cell towers in Marin were nonoperational during the weekend power outage; trees and wind damaged nine of the towers, and 105 were dark due to the lack of power. Some areas had better service than others because they were covered by overlapping cell-tower sites.

Tiburon Peninsula residents reported they began to lose service shortly after the first outage began, with AT&T having the worst coverage and Verizon faring well.

Belvedere-Tiburon Emergency Services Coordinator Laurie Nilsen also said cell towers in the area have backup generators that last approximately four to six hours before they shut off.

Staffing up for public safety

Extra police officers are being staffed throughout the outages, but police reported the number of emergency calls stayed normal during the blackout, with most callers requesting welfare checks on family members who were unreachable or requesting extra patrols past homes left vacant, as many residents decided to stay in San Francisco.

It’s unclear, however, if the unreliable phone service impacted the call volume.

Chaput, of the fire district, also said residents were calling and dropping into the station to ask about the smoke in the area. Particulates from the Kincade and other fires have registered an air-quality index exceeding 101 in Tiburon, entering a range considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, and triggered Spare the Air alerts and the county’s closure of Paradise Beach Park in Tiburon.

Ahead of the first outage, local public officials, including police and fire, had been slow to publicly address the impending outage. PG&E first began alerting customers the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 24, releasing outage maps that included the Tiburon Peninsula for the first time.

At 7:30 a.m. Oct. 25, PG&E notified the county it would be included in the shutoff, launching county officials into a flurry of activity as they offered updates to residents about the efforts being undertaking to coordinate a response and the shelters and charging stations that would be open. Reed district Superintendent Nancy Lynch did the same, informing parents about 8:15 a.m. that schools would finish out the day if power was cut during school hours, then close until power was fully restored. Chambers of commerce elsewhere in Marin began warning of business closures. All were offering outage tips alongside web- and phone-based emergency and non-emergency resources.

May residents began sharing the information on community website NextDoor.com and were calling and stopping by The Ark to learn additional details.

In late-morning interviews, Nilsen, the joint emergency-services coordinator, said she was waiting for a noon conference call with PG&E to get specifics before she was prepared to issue a statement through the town, while Tiburon fire district Fire Marshal Mike Lantier said the agency planned to notify residents by social media only after PG&E confirmed the area would be included in the potential shutoff, though the utility had already done so. The district didn’t post any alerts to social media until a Facebook post Oct. 28, the day power was to be restored, and has not updated its Twitter or the “recent news and events” section of its website in more than a year.

The town of Tiburon issued a Tiburon Talk bulletin about 2:30 p.m. Oct. 25, notifying residents that extra police would be on duty and that its recharging station would be up and running, and the city of Belvedere followed at 4:15 p.m.

While the Southern Marin Fire Protection District, whose jurisdiction includes northern Tiburon and Strawberry, made its first outage-related post to Facebook and Twitter about 8 p.m.

Keeping on with normal life

As residents began learning of the outage Oct. 25 and 26, gas stations in unincorporated Tiburon and Strawberry were packed with people preemptively filling tanks and stocking up on ice to keep perishables cool. Many local grocery stores and pump stations ran out before the shutoff started, and many stations then shut down entirely by Oct. 28, forcing drivers into San Francisco and the East Bay to refuel.

One silver lining for frustrated residents was water service. The Marin Municipal Water District reported it would be able to remain fully operational by using backup generators for “as long as they are needed,” district spokeswoman Jeanne Mariani-Belding said.

Some of the only lights that remained on in Tiburon were the six traffic signals along Tiburon Boulevard, from Trestle Glen Boulevard to Beach Road, which were powered by portable generators from Caltrans.

However, the Tiburon Boulevard traffic lights at Blackfield Drive and East Strawberry Boulevard, in unincorporated Tiburon, went black when the power was cut. At least one car accident was reported about an hour after the shutoff, about 9:30 p.m. Oct. 26, at the intersection of Blackfield Drive and Tiburon Boulevard, according to Tiburon police.

During the outage, the Tiburon Police Department became a hub for residents who needed to recharge phones, laptops and spare batteries and use the internet after the generator at Town Hall — the original recharging location — malfunctioned before it could open to the public.

The police station stayed open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 27-28, allowing residents to stay and use the power for as long as they needed. Many sipped coffee and ate donuts while their devices were plugged into the nearest outlet and swapped information about which local stores had remained open during the outage.

Tiburon resident Ben Morrell, along with his daughters Piper, 10, and Cleo, 7, went to the station midday Oct. 28 because the girls’ schools had canceled classes for the day.

Morrell and his daughter read books and newspapers while they waited for their spare batteries and computers to charge nearby; they opted not to use the station’s internet, which was overtaxed and unreliable.

It wasn’t the last day the kids would be out of school: With the second shutoff looming, the Reed Union School District and Tamalpais Union High School District have now announced that all schools will be closed through Oct. 30, when officials will reassess whether they’d need to remain closed if the outage continues.

Like the Tiburon police station, the Belvedere Community Center was open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 27-28, also providing a place for residents to recharge their devices. The center is also offering storage for those who require refrigerated medicines.

For Strawberry residents, the Mill Valley Community Center has been acting as a local charging station from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Meanwhile, PG&E’s closest community-resource center — which offers charging, bottled water, snacks and air conditioning — is at the Marin City Health & Wellness Center at 630 Drake Ave. and is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily until power is restored.

In Tiburon, Nugget Market at The Cove Shopping Center was fully operational, complete with hot food. Salt & Pepper restaurant was among the few downtown businesses that remained open, with cash-only service of coffee and breakfast fare on Sunday and Monday.

Woodlands Market at The Boardwalk Shopping Center was also allowing only a few shoppers into the dark store at a time.

Fran Wilson, who lives on Centro West Street in Tiburon, said she walked down to Woodlands with her husband to get coffee early Oct. 27. She said they had been wrapping up dinner with a friend about 8:30 the night before when the lights went out.

Wilson said she had no idea what to expect from an extended power outage, so they had filled their tub with water that morning in case water service was knocked out too.

To get the latest information from PG&E, visit psps.ss.pge.com, which provides an address-specific lookup tool for planned outages and a link to additional resources, including a tool to check restoration time estimates and current press releases.

Matthew Hose contributed to this report. Reporter Hannah Weikel covers Belvedere and public safety issues. Kevin Hessel is The Ark’s executive Editor.