Residents in the Santa Cruz mountains are fed up with continual unscheduled power outages that have been plaguing their community.
It's been a long and frustrating road for locals who have been left in the dark for hours at a time. In the past two weeks, there have been seven outages alone.
PG&E's wildfire safety plan is causing power outages in Santa Cruz.Jennifer Hodges/KCBS Radio
The problem lies with PG&E's safety system to prevent wildfires as it can be tripped by things like a branch or a squirrel, immediately cutting power to the entire community. The utility company has promised to fine tune the system so that it will affect a smaller area when there is an outage, but residents aren't convinced.
"We've lived here our whole lives, PG&E has been basically unreliable for most of that time," a Santa Cruz woman told KCBS Radio. "They will say things and then it doesn't happen."
PG&E's wildfire safety plan is causing power outages in Santa Cruz.Jennifer Hodges/KCBS Radio
At this point, residents said they are just "used to things happening" and having to deal with those things without the help of PG&E. "Look at all the wildfires caused by their lines," one man said. "Have they fixed it yet? No."
PG&E intends on undergrounding 10,000 miles of power lines in California to mitigate wildfire risk, but hasn't said when that plan will be put into action.
