San Francisco experienced massive power outages, leaving 130,000 residents in the northern part of the city without power.
City residents took to social media ahead of the Christmas holidays to post about the many closed restaurants and stores, unusual for this time of year.
San Francisco, home to many of America’s largest tech companies, saw disruption to public transportation and traffic as a result of the outage. Authorities have asked people to stay at home and off the roads.
“We’ve got rain coming. It’s night time. If you don’t need to go out, stay home,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie posted on Twitter.
Lurie later posted that some services had resumed, but others remained affected, continuing to urge residents to stay at home.
Fire partially causes outage
The city’s main electricity provider, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., said it was working with authorities to restore power. It later said it had stabilized the power grid and no further outages were expected.
According to fire officials, a fire at one of the company’s substations appears to have caused some of the blackouts.
It was not immediately clear how long it would take for power to be fully restored.
Edited by: Rana Taha