As more elected officials cry foul about the massive power outage in San Francisco that began on Saturday, the new CEO of PGE took to social media Tuesday night to assure the community that the utility was working as hard as it could to get to the bottom of it. Sumeet Singh, who officially become s CEO for PGE on Jan. 1, said he had the “humbling privilege” to serve in the new role and that he had taken to heart the hardship and inconvenience caused by the outage. “As I met with our customers that were impacted from this outage yesterday at the customer resource center in the Richmond District, I felt in my heart the hardship that you had to endure,” Singh said. Power was fully restored early Tuesday morning to all customers following the outage caused by a fire at a substation at Eighth and Mission streets. At the height of the outage Saturday afternoon, about 130,000 customers across the city lost power, including many in the Civic Center and Richmond District. Singh said the cause of the substation fire is still under investigation. “We don’t yet know the root cause of this fire, but we won’t rest until we get to the bottom of what happened,” he said. Singh said the Mission substation has been upgraded in recent years at a cost of more than $200 million, and that it had most recently been inspected on Dec. 5. Residential customers in the city will be getting a $200 credit on their bills, while impacted business customers will receive a $2,500 credit, PGE said. Customers do not need to take any action to receive the credits. Singh said the company is promising approximately $50 million in compensation. San Francisco Dec 23 Business owners stress economic damage from power outage in San Francisco San Francisco Dec 23 Power fully restored in San Francisco, PGE says San Francisco Dec 23 PGE announces bill credits for San Francisco customers affected by massive outage On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Castro Valley, called the blackouts an issue of national security. “When the lights go out, it’s not simply an inconvenience. It’s a public safety risk,” he said. “When a single substation failure leaves 130,000 people in the dark, stops our transit, and freezes our most advanced technology in the streets, it isn’t just a ‘utility problem.’ It is a security failure.” Swalwell, who is running for California governor, said that there could be even greater implications. “If a localized fire can paralyze the heart of the fourth-largest economy in the world, our infrastructure is not just ‘outdated,’ it is more vulnerable than ever,” he said. Singh, who made a point during his social media address to refer to San Francisco as the company’s “hometown,” has had to respond to pushback from multiple elected officials such as Mayor Daniel Lurie, who called the delays to get power back up “unacceptable,” to Supervisors Bilal Mahmood and Alan Wong, who both want to convene hearings related to the matter. Mahmood on Monday said he was concerned that the power losses caused the autonomous taxi fleet of Waymos to stop dead in their tracks, calling the blackouts a “disaster.” Social media posts throughout the weekend illustrated driverless cars stuck at intersections, their lights blinking, seemingly confused by downed traffic signals. Mahmood’s ire was more toward the car company than PGE, but he said he wanted to hold PGE accountable for what went wrong in the first place. Mahmood is co-sponsoring a hearing called by Wong to examine the causes and impacts of the power loss. A date for the hearing will be set at the next Board of Supervisors meeting, Wong said. For Singh, the debacle shined a light on the city’s strength in unity, he said. “As I reflect on the events of the past few days, what stands out for me is the way you — families and entire neighborhoods — came together to support one another,” he said. “Your resilience and care for each other truly made a difference.” ...read more read less