More than 2,000 still without power in SLO County after furious storm lashes coast
Thousands of PG&E customers lost power Wednesday afternoon when a furious storm cell — possibly even a tornado — barreled through San Luis Obispo County.
At the peak of the outage, as many as 7,400 customers were without power, but that number had dropped to 2,300 by 5:30 p.m., according to PG&E spokesperson Carina Corral.
Among the hard-hit areas were Grover Beach, where powerful winds knocked down several large trees, along with Oceano and San Luis Obispo.
PG&E crews were also responding to Los Osos Valley Road near Turri Road, where five power poles were knocked down, Corral said.
Downed wires in Grover Beach cut power to 1,600 customers. Corral said a few hundred were without power in San Luis Obispo.
In Avila Beach, around 5,170 customers briefly lost power at 3:23 p.m., according to PG&E’s outage map, but it was restored by 4:50 p.m.
“All of these outages occurred within 30 minutes of each other, at the height of today’s strong weather that moved through the area,” Corral told The Tribune. “Our local PG&E crews are moving quickly and safely to restore power.
Crews were still being dispatched, and Corral said it was too early to estimate when power would be fully restored.
