Half Moon Bay grapples with outages

Those were just a few impacts of the outage that began 8 p.m. Saturday in the city, throughout the coastside and into some more densely populated areas of San Mateo County east of Interstate 280.

“This whole place is kind of stuck,” said resident Robbie Reid. “No one here has power. There’s nothing you can do.” 

Pacific Gas and Electric is shutting off the power because of wildfire danger due to strong winds and dry conditions. This was the third planned outage in a month. While there were reports power came back on in parts of the coast Monday evening, a fourth outage is slated to begin Tuesday. Initial reports said the outages would begin in the morning, but later reports from county emergency officials indicate they would begin as late as 11 p.m. when another strong wind event is expected. The wind is expected to last until 7 a.m. Wednesday, at which point PG&E will begin to turn power back on. Go to https://psps.ss.pge.com for more specific information and to see if your address is on the outage map.

Frustrations have been growing among residents who feel PG&E’s communications about the outages and when they might end are lacking. 

“PG&E has not come out with any announcement since last night,” resident Helen Tsang said Monday afternoon at a charging station set up in the Ted Adcock Community Center. “There are rumors they’ll put the power back and then turn it off again tomorrow and then we hear no they won’t put it back on at all. We don’t know what’s going on. I think they could be better at communicating.”

Reid stocked up on lanterns, flashlights and batteries after the previous outage and only found out about this one through her neighbor.

“Because I live in a vacation rental, there’s no PG&E notice to me of what they’re doing because my landlord pays the PG&E,” she said. “Those of us who don’t have PG&E accounts don’t get any notification at all.” 

Reid, who works remotely, has been commuting to a friends’ house in Belmont to use their internet for work. But for some, the loss of power is much more than an inconvenience.

“God help all these people in town who are on oxygen or dialysis,” said resident Bart Colucci. Due to pneumonia, Colucci’s wife was taken to Stanford Hospital just before the latest outage began. “Thank god she’d already gone to the emergency room the day before. If she wasn’t at Stanford, what would I have done?”

Businesses have seen their bottom line suffer while the power is out.

Lost gelato

Jean Paul Gulino, owner of Gulino Gelato, estimated the outages have cost him at least $4,000.  

“I cannot sell because I cannot produce the gelato or keep it,” he said, adding that the outages have closed his business for a total of five days so far and have melted five batches of his product. “[Five batches] is a good amount of sales.”

Another local business owner said some restaurants in town are losing $20,000 to $30,000 a day. 

And it’s not just business owners who are affected. 

“Not only are the business owners impacted, but also all of their employees,” said Ginger Minoletti, owner of Barterra Winery. “They’ve all been sent home and have been off work two to three days with no pay. It’s a horrendous economic impact. 

“I’m not sure we’re in that dire danger,” she added, speaking of PG&E’s reason for shutting off the power.

Minoletti said the winery remained open on Sunday, though she didn’t have access to cash and couldn’t process credit card payments because of the outage. So she handwrote customers’ credit card information to charge them once power is restored.

Tsang said the inability to get ice anywhere in the city has been one of the biggest impacts and another resident said many are unable to shower. 

“A lot of the people here on the coastside are on a well so, without electricity, we don’t have water,” that resident said. “The toilet thing is bad. Imagine living with no water in the sink, no water in the toilets. No water in your house. When it goes on for days that gets really ugly.” 

Creativity in order

Residents also found creative means of dealing with the unfortunate circumstances. Some barbecued food and others gathered solar-powered lights and other devices. Gulino purchased four blocks of dry ice to keep his refrigerator and freezer cold. 

The hum of generators could also be heard from countless streets and those with RVs were not regretting that purchase.

The library remained open, but without power, though residents could use the restroom and rent laptops as well as WiFi hotspot devices. 

Cunha Intermediate School also remained open, though a teacher said there were many absences on Monday. Classes took place in rooms with sufficient natural light and teachers relied on chalkboards. 

Stuck

Brothers Evan and Josh Mandell from San Jose decided to take a motorcycle ride on the coast Monday. They were low on gas passing through Half Moon Bay when they realized none of the gas stations in the city were open. 

They barely made it to a gas station along Highway 1, with Josh Mandell pulling his brother’s bike by hand for the final mile. 

“It’s a terrible feeling,” Josh Mandell said. “We’re safe, but we’re not exactly sure what we’ll do.” 

To add insult to injury, a truck was refueling the station at the time, so there was plenty of gas on site, just no means of pumping it into vehicles without power. Josh Mandell also had a flight to catch that evening. 

Preparations

Resident Carol Davies described the past two days as “mellow,” though she’s packed and ready to go if a wildfire were to ignite. 

“I’m ready to go if I have to go. I’ll go to the beach because they can’t burn sand,” she said, adding that the smell of smoke was so strong Sunday night she thought a wildfire might’ve been nearby. “It’s comforting to know I’m ready to do it, but I don’t want to.”

Davies said she walked outside Sunday night and noticed one small silver lining to the troubling circumstances. 

“It was so dark, there were more stars than we usually see. It was neat,” she said.

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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