RAINY SEASON CAUSES FIRST WAVE OF OUTAGES

Power outages are no stranger to the Humboldt area, especially with all the trees. A tree fell in Arcata on Tuesday, and while it didn’t cause a power outage, it might have to be looked at again. “It took out some of the property and the property on the other side."Ivan Marruffo says a tree hitting the main line is what caused the estimated 2,400 customers to be without power on Tuesday."We have a main tap line that goes north that feeds Trinidad, Big Lagoon and Oreck substations,” Marruffo said. “And a tree or some other debris came in contact with that and took out those three substations."And that’s where PG&E’s job begins."When we have large amounts of customers go without power, typically what we try to do a progressive trouble shooting technique," Marruffo said.That consists of trying to find out where the problem occurred. Marruffo says to think of it like the breaker in your house is the substation—it sends out power to all the circuits in your house. That’s exactly what a substation would do— send power to the circuits in the city.Marruffo said a crew checks the trees on a regular basis, but residents should still be prepared.“Have flashlights available, a radio for any information you might receive, and also contact PG&E immediately to let us know where the outage is out,” he said.Especially since the rainy season is just starting. "This is just the beginning of it,” Marruffo said. “There's going to be more as we experienced in the past."