Auburn area loses power during heatwave; another round of outages expected

Brace yourselves Auburn, PG&E may need to cut energy to more customers today from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. as it replaces failing equipment which caused power outages in the area Monday. On Monday at 6:40 p.m., while temperatures were hovering in the high 90s, 5,900 customers in the Auburn area lost power due to an issue with a transformer bank at the PG&E Placer substation. According to Megan McFarland, spokesperson for PG&E, crews responded with two troublemen to the site at 8 p.m. "PG&E determined that there was an issue with the bank which would require an emergency replacement," stated a release from McFarland. "Throughout the evening we were able to restore power to all impacted customers via switching." McFarland added that PG&E is working "around the clock" to replace the substation equipment and hopes to have it back in service late Wednesday. "While we make safety repairs and test the new equipment, PG&E will need to deenergize approximately 1,600 customers from approximately 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday," according to McFarland, adding PG&E is in the process of notifying customers who will be impacted. For Councilman Daniel Berlant and his three month old son, the timing of the outage Monday couldn't be worse. He said that he ended up taking his son on a scenic drive through Auburn to keep him cool and burn some time. "The outage is a reminder that we should all be checking on our elderly neighbors, but now I know from experience to check on those with little kids," Berlant said in an email to the Auburn Journal. "Lucky for me several people offered their A/C and pool during the outage, including (fellow councilwoman) Alice Dowdin Calvillo. I saw several posts on Facebook offering up refuge during the outage, which is just another reason why Auburn is such an amazing community."