No lights: Street lights have no electricity during a Pacific Gas & Electric outage in Lafayette, California on Saturday. A Northern California blaze forced evacuation orders and warnings for nearly all of Sonoma County stretching to the coast. — AP
SAN FRANCISCO: PG&E Corp began cutting power to more than 2.5 million Californians in the state’s largest deliberate blackout ever.
The bankrupt utility giant is shutting off the lights in phases to about 940,000 homes and businesses across Northern California – including parts of Oakland, Berkeley and other areas around San Francisco – as it tries to keep power lines from igniting wildfires during the strongest wind storm in years.
