Tuesday's Power Outage Caused By Failed Cable Splice, PG&E Says

Story updated 6:36 p.m., Aug. 24

A power outage that cut electricity to homes and businesses in parts of El Cerrito, Albany and Berkeley late Tuesday afternoon was caused by a failed splice in an underground cable, PG&E said today, Wednesday.

The outage — reported to PG&E at 3:46 p.m. — affected 3,278 customers, said PG&E representative Tamar Sarkissian. Power was restored to all but 125 customers by 5:30 p.m. and to all customers by 5:54 p.m., she said.

The cable whose splice failed is located in a PG&E power substation on Schmidt Lane in El Cerrito, Sarkissian said.

She said part of the outage area was bounded by Solano Avenue on the south, San Pablo Avenue on the west, Fairmount Avenue on the north and Carmel Avenue on the east. El Cerrito Patch readers reported power out at El Cerrito Plaza and in the vicinity of San Pablo Avenue and Carlson Boulevard.

Reports from Albany said the outage contributed to delays in sorting out beginning-of-school registration problems at Albany High and Albany Middle schools.

"We appreciate our customers' patience, and we understand that this was an inconvenience," Sarkissian said. "We did everything in our power to quickly and safely restore power to our customers."