Advisory: Severe Fire Weather & Potential New Power Shutoff Event Forecast to Begin Saturday, 10/26 in Santa Rosa.
New PG&E Power Shutoff Event Probable Beginning this Saturday
Due to forecasted weather conditions, there is potential for another PG&E Power Shutoff event that would impact significant portions of Sonoma County, including the City of Santa Rosa. The timing for the potential shutoff begins Saturday starting as early as approximately 1:00 p.m. (10/26) through Monday (10/28), at which time the restoration process would then begin. Due to the intensity of the forecasted weather and the likelihood of damage to PG&E’s infrastructure, it is anticipated that the restoration process may take multiple days and power may be out for an extended time frame. Community members are urged to prepare now in the event of an extended outage lasting several days.
Use PG&E’s address lookup tool to enter your address in searchable map to determine whether you are impacted at psps.ss.pge.com
Additional PG&E updates can be found at pgealerts.com
During an extended PSPS or power outage, our ability to alert residents could be impacted. Learn about the use of Hi/Lo sirens for emergency alerting and preplan evacuation routes by visiting srcity.org/knowyourwaysout
Severe Fire Weather Forecast for Weekend
A Red Flag Warning is in effect from 8 p.m. Saturday (10/26) to 11 a.m. Monday (10/28) for the North Bay mountains, valleys, and coastlines and including all of the City of Santa Rosa. A High Wind Warning is also in effect.
The National Weather Service has indicated that this event looks to be the strongest since the 2017 North Bay Fires and a potentially historic event given the strength and duration of the winds.
Santa Rosa Fire and Police departments will have extra staffing in place through the duration of the weather event and potential power shutoff. The City’s Emergency Operation Center also remains activated.
Anticipated Traffic Signal Outages and Driver Safety
If PG&E implements a power shutoff this weekend, multiple intersections are expected to be without power. Due to traffic signal impacts caused by an outage, drivers are encouraged to stay home and stay off the roads as much as possible. If you must drive, please reduce speeds, drive with caution and treat all intersections without power as a 4-way stop, per state law. Based on information received from PG&E, the City anticipates a number of traffic signals to be nonfunctional during the shutoff. A list of intersections anticipated to be impacted is available at srcity.org/PSPSTrafficImpacts
Stop signs will be staged at intersections with the highest traffic volume and roadway speed to help remind drivers that they must stop at intersections where signals are out.
For up-to-date emergency information, visit srcity.org/emergency or call 2-1-1.
STAY SAFE EVERYONE!
Caritas Village is the Catholic Charities project that proposes to destroy all historic structures on the southern-most block of our historic district and replace them with a 3-story family and homeless drop-in center along with two structures up to 4-stories in height that will have 126 living units. The entire complex will have 54 parking spaces. The applicant will be presenting this project to the city’s Cultural Heritage Board and the Design Review Board this Wednesday, 10/16, at 4:30pm in the City Hall council chambers. This is a public meeting that residents can attend and speak if they wish. Comments can also be emailed to the city planner on this project: Kristinae Toomians at KToomians@srcity.org
