Power restored to hundreds along Hwy. 1 after outage, Cuesta to resume later classes
A power outage cut electricity to Cuesta College and nearly 300 other PG&E customers Wednesday morning, forcing some classes to be canceled.
The outage was reported around 10:06 a.m., according to PG&E’s outage report map. It was expected to be restored by 6:45 p.m., according to the PG&E website, but ended up being resolved by noon.
Initially, classes were canceled through the afternoon, though students were encouraged to check their online class forums for directions from instructors, according to a news release from Cuesta College.
But after power was restored quickly, Cuesta decided classes after 5 p.m. would be held as planned, though classes before 5 p.m. were still canceled, Cuesta College associate director of marketing and communications Ritchie Bermudez said.
The cause of the outage — which spanned the area from El Chorro Regional Park to Morro Bay State Park — was not known on Wednesday.
The outage affected 292 customers in an area that includes the Sheriff’s Office, the County Jail and Camp San Luis Obispo, though the Sheriff’s Office and County Jail did not suffer outages, according to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Tony Cipolla.
Cambria experiences overnight outage
Cuesta College wasn’t the only SLO County location to report a major outage on Wednesday.
In Cambria, 3,452 customers were without power between 12:47 a.m. and 2 a.m., according to PG&E communications representative Carina Corral.
“It looks like it was an outage in Cambria and was initiated by our Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings, or EPSS,” Corral said. “These settings allow our powerlines to automatically turn off power within one-tenth of a second when there is a hazard, like a tree branch falling into a powerline. EPSS settings are in place in high fire-risk areas and some adjacent regions, which is why some areas not in a high fire risk area experience these outages.”
Corral said in some cases, it can be difficult to determine the cause of an outage because hazards are no longer visible when crews patrol an area to restore power, as was the case last night in Cambria.
Corral said in 2022, there was a 68% reduction in fire ignitions on EPSS-enabled powerlines, and in the event of a fire, there was a 99% decrease in the number of acres affected.
