More than 2,500 PG&E customers in Los Osos were still without power for much of the day Thursday after the lights went out during Wednesday night’s storm.
According to PG&E, there were 49 power outages in total across the Central Coast, affecting thousands of customers.
The biggest job awaiting PG&E crews Thursday morning was along South Bay Boulevard.
Flooding wouldn't allow them to access the downed lines by ground and their usual bucket trucks weren’t tall enough to reach the lines. Their last resort was to bring in a crane.
“Right now, we have a crew that is being hoisted by a crane in order to get to some tree branches that are in some lines that are preventing us from reenergizing the lines," said Carina Corral, PG&E Communications Representative.
Corral said the hazardous conditions Wednesday night forced crews to wait until Thursday to work on the power lines, leaving thousands of residents in Los Osos without power.
“About 7:45 or so it seems like it went out and we thought it would get turned on pretty quick, but it didn’t," said Los Osos resident Richard Warner. "We had flashlights and just everything is out."
“This power outage started at 6,800 customers. We were able to reconfigure the grid and get power from a different circuit and get power into those customers' homes," Corral explained.
For more than 4,000 customers, the lights were back on by 9 p.m. Wednesday. Power was restored to the remaining 2,500+ customers at around 5 p.m. Thursday.
South Bay Boulevard was reduced to one lane while crews worked on the lines.
