About 22,000 electricity customers—nearly the entire city—were without power in Gilroy the morning of May 3 .
The electricity shut off around 8:38am on May 3, and was fully restored by 10:30am, according to Pacific Gas & Electric.
PG&E spokesperson Karen Altridge said the cause of the outage is still under investigation, and offered no timetable on when it will be determined.
The U.S. Census reports approximately 16,000 households in Gilroy and approximately 6,000 businesses.The city-wide power outage affected nearly every traffic signal in Gilroy, prompting Gilroy Police to issue a Nixle emergency alert to motorists.
“If a traffic signal it not working, please treat the intersection as if it were controlled by stop signs,” the advisory read. “Don’t assume other drivers will stop for you.”
All school sites in Gilroy Unified School District, except for Christopher High, were affected, the district announced on Twitter.
The outage affected numerous businesses in the city, and many employees could be seen standing outside of their businesses during the two-hour shutoff.
Even after power was restored, Scotty’s Restaurant in downtown was still closed during the lunch hour, while Los Pericos Taqueria on Fifth Street had difficulty getting its payment machines back up and running.
