PG&E Storm Outages Spark Outrage Across California

California’s holiday season was turned upside down this year as a wave of powerful winter storms swept across the state, plunging tens of thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) customers into darkness on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The outages, which affected regions from San Francisco to the Central Coast and as far north as Mendocino County, reignited long-standing frustrations with PG&E’s infrastructure, communication, and accountability—sparking renewed calls for reform, rebates, and even municipal takeover.

San Francisco, a city no stranger to PG&E-related blackouts, found itself at the epicenter of the debate after a citywide outage on December 25, 2025, upended holiday plans and left residents scrambling. Mayor Daniel Lurie, speaking to ABC7 News, voiced the city’s exasperation directly to PG&E’s leadership. “I spoke to the CEO yesterday. I told her my frustrations with the communications,” he said. Lurie didn’t mince words about the financial burden on residents, adding, “Our ratepayers are paying far too much for the collapse, so I want to see rates going down.”

The outage’s impact was immediate and personal for many. Sunshine McLawhorn, a San Francisco resident, told ABC7 News, “It was just a huge inconvenience. You need to take care of the people who pay a lot of money for that power. I just had to go grocery shopping yesterday, $400 just to make up for what I lost. So we need to do better, PG&E.”

PG&E responded by offering automatic rebates—$200 for residential customers and up to $2,500 for businesses. The utility admitted fault for the outage, setting aside $50 million to address the fallout. Mayor Lurie welcomed the gesture as a “good first step,” but pressed for more, emphasizing, “We have to make sure that the ratepayers are not the ones that pay for this. They have admitted that it was their fault. But we need more from PG&E. We need to make sure that there are no future blackouts. We need to know that their infrastructure is sound.”

The city’s frustration is rooted in a troubled history with PG&E. According to ABC7 News, San Francisco endured a similar blackout in 2003, also linked to a fire at the same downtown substation. State regulators later determined that the failures were avoidable and that PG&E had not addressed problems identified as far back as 1996. This legacy of unresolved issues has prompted the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to plan hearings with PG&E after the holidays. Some city leaders, including Supervisor Matt Dorsey, are openly discussing a municipal takeover of PG&E’s infrastructure. “The result would be that we would have better rates. I think it would be more affordability. And we would have more accountability,” Dorsey told ABC7 News.

Such a move wouldn’t happen overnight. The city requested the California Public Utilities Commission in 2021 to assess the cost of acquiring PG&E’s local assets—a process that could take years. State Senator Scott Wiener, currently running for San Francisco’s congressional seat, announced plans to introduce legislation in early 2026 to expedite the process. “We want to make it even more straightforward and create an even clearer path, for cities like San Francisco, to be able to break up with PG&E,” Wiener said.

PG&E’s leadership has been on the defensive. Chief Operating Officer Sumeet Singh apologized in a social media video, saying, “We will not rest until we know what happened. We know we need to do better in providing you with accurate estimated time of restorations.” Singh noted that the company had invested about $200 million in the Mission and 8th Streets substation since the 2003 fire, with preventative maintenance as recently as October and the latest inspection on December 5, 2025. However, Singh did not provide specifics on system upgrades, and no issues were found in the recent inspections.

San Francisco’s woes weren’t isolated. On December 24, 2025, the Sunset District near Ocean Beach experienced a brief but impactful outage—its fourth in December. Supervisor Alan Wong, newly appointed by Mayor Lurie and running for reelection, criticized PG&E in a video posted from a darkened room, calling the string of outages “very disappointing and ridiculous.” Wong has called for a hearing to demand answers and urged city departments to evaluate options for strengthening oversight and reliability. PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian attributed the outage, which affected 3,853 customers, to storms and highlighted the use of AI technology and storm outage prediction models to restore power swiftly.

Elsewhere in Northern California, the Christmas storms were relentless. Over 10,000 PG&E customers in Nevada County lost power after an unplanned outage began around 4:40 a.m. on December 25, according to FOX40. Grass Valley and Nevada City were among the hardest hit, though most outages occurred in unincorporated areas. PG&E crews were working to restore power, but no estimated restoration time was available.

In Mendocino County, more than 5,600 customers were left in the dark, with the hardest-hit areas including Fort Bragg, Caspar, Mendocino, and Anderson Valley. Some residents had been without power since early December 24, while others woke up to outages on Christmas Day, reported The Mendocino Voice. PG&E cited high winds and heavy rain as the culprits, warning that outages could last for hours or even days.

West Redding also saw over 350 customers lose power around 3:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, as reported by local news outlets. Repairs were delayed until the extreme weather passed, adding to the list of communities struggling through the holiday without electricity.

On the Central Coast, the numbers were even more daunting. According to KSBW, more than 35,000 PG&E customers woke up without power on Christmas morning. Monterey County alone had nearly 19,000 customers affected by 119 outages, with restoration times stretching into the evening and even the following day for some areas. Santa Cruz County reported 16,309 customers affected at the start of Christmas Day, with over 8,700 still without power by the afternoon. All outages were attributed to weather-related events—downed trees and wires from powerful winds and rain.

The Bay Area as a whole was battered by wind gusts exceeding 92 mph, with Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Mateo, and Sonoma counties among the hardest hit. According to Bay Area news sources, over 35,000 customers remained without power on December 25, 2025, with more than 17,000 of those in Sonoma County. PG&E crews had already restored power to over 383,000 customers since the storms began late on December 24, but the work was far from over as more storms were forecast to arrive.

To support those affected, PG&E set up resource centers in places like Guerneville, offering shelter, food, water, and charging stations for electronics. Customers were encouraged to monitor outages, register for alerts, and follow safety tips on generator use and food storage during the prolonged blackouts.

As Californians reflect on a holiday marked by darkness and disruption, the conversation around PG&E’s future has reached a fever pitch. The storms may have passed, but the debate over accountability, infrastructure investment, and the possibility of public ownership is only beginning to gather steam.