PG
&
amp;E customers from Gilroy to San Jose lose power after
explosion
Gilroy – Minutes after PG&E crews installed a new underground fuse switch off Camino Arroyo, it malfunctioned, causing a fire that cut off power to 5,500 customers from Gilroy to south San Jose for about 90 minutes Wednesday morning.
“They took off and 10 minutes later it blew,” said a Verizon splicer who was working on nearby lines at the time. “We were at that box and heard a big ol’ boom. The top blew off and we saw a mushroom cloud.”
The outage lasted from about 10:15am until almost noon, when most customers got their power back. But at 4pm some traffic lights along Luchessa Avenue and 10th Street were still not working.
The fuse is located near Kohl’s and knocked out power to the business for most of the day.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said area supervisor Ken Ermita. “Hopefully we’ll be able to open up and get at least some sales in.”
As of 5pm, the store had only sold $15 in merchandise and was still without power.
But those residences and businesses operating on different grids lucked out – watching as their neighbors were stuck without power.
Shoppers browsed through racks of athletic gear in the dark at Sportmart. Mimi’s Cafe was forced to turn some customers away at the door because they had no way of cooking the food.
Construction crews making final touches at Famous Dave’s, slated to open next week, were able to work despite the outage.
“It did throw a wrench in things for about an hour,” said Director of Operations John Costello.
The restaurant was in the middle of a fire code inspection when the power was cut.
Pockets of Gilroy were without power along the Llagas circuit, which extends up to south San Jose.
“Even though there were 5,500 customers who were out, they were not all from Gilroy,” said PG&E spokesperson Jeff Smith.
According to Smith, only Kohl’s experienced a prolonged loss of power because their lines feed directly off the switch.
PG&E alerted the business earlier that it was going to schedule an outage in the morning. A crew replaced the switch and when they turned it back on the trouble began.
“It blew. Man, did it blow. That was a big fireball in there. I’ve never seen one this bad,” a PG&E worker said peering into the 5-foot hole. Concrete was blown from the edges of the box and charred from the flames.
Firefighters received a call at 10:37am and used a dry chemical to extinguish the flames. They spent an hour at the scene getting confirmation that the line was dead.
PG&E crews had to reset circuits manually and shut everything down to isolate the problem.
Signs on businesses at Gilroy Crossings read, “Closed due to power outage, sorry,” for much of the afternoon. Frustrated customers pulled on locked doors. The parking lot was a wasteland of empty space when Hollister residents Chuck and Tonie Verbanic arrived with plans to buy birthday presents for friends.
“Now what are we going to do?” Tonie asked. “Golly, there’s no one here.”
The couple waited inside their car just in case the power returned, watching as others tried the doors and read the signs.
“We picked a good day,” Chuck laughed. “I got some such luck. Son of a gun … Everybody’s coming, but they’re wasting their time.”
