Update: Downed Pole Replacement Delays Restoration of Power, PG&E Says

It will be mid-afternoon before all Pacific Gas & Electric customers affected by Thursday's outage get power restored because of the tricky nature of replacing a downed power pole, a PG&E spokesman said Friday.

A downed pole and two downed lines caused an outage just after 6 p.m. Thursday near the intersection of Sequoia Glen Lane and South Redwood Boulevard in southern Novato.

PG&E said 8,700 customers — at least one quarter of customers in the city — were affected, but it was quickly reduced to about 7,000 over a widespread area. On Friday morning, spokesman Joe Molica said 564 customers probably would not have power restored until 4:30 p.m.

Late Thursday PG&E said it expected to have everything repaired by about 9 a.m. Friday, but Molica said the main transmission pole that was sheared off near its base requires a delicate replacement procedure.

"It had two circuits on it, and those transmission poles are the ones that are taller and sunk deeper into the ground," he said. "They build them robustly, so it's fairly rare for something like this to happen."

A construction crew was using a backhoe to clear the area and prepare to install the new transmission pole about 10 feet deep, he said.

Molica an investigation is ongoing about how the pole came down, but high winds are thought to be the source.

PG&E planned to bring in generators to supply affected customers with temporary power, but Molica said it wasn't possible to set up in time.