Over 20,700 still without power in San Francisco after massive outage leaves homes and businesses in the dark

Over 20,700 utility customers in San Francisco are still in the dark after a massive outage on Saturday left homes and businesses without power.

The significant outage began impacting the city at around 1:09 p.m. Saturday and reached its peak two hours later with 130,000 homes and businesses affected, according to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. PG&E restored power to around 95,000 customers by 11 p.m. Saturday night.

On Sunday, the bulk of the outages appeared to be in the heavily residential Richmond District, sandwiched between Golden Gate Park on the south and the Presidio on the north.

The cause of the outage was not immediately clear on Sunday. The outage represents roughly one-third of the utility company’s customers in the city.

Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were “significant transit disruptions” happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops.

The city’s transportation agencies said they were bypassing some Muni bus and BART train stations because of the power outages.

At least some of the blackouts were caused by a fire that broke out inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets, fire officials posted on X at about 3:15 p.m.

PG&E said that it has stabilized the power grid and is not expecting additional outages.

“We have crews on scene and will share more information as it becomes available,” the electric company said Saturday afternoon.