Willow Glen Resident

News

Lincoln businesses lose power on busiest day of the season

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

Businesses in downtown Willow Glen were not happy when the lights went out on the season's busiest Saturday.

According to PG&E Spokesman Brian Swanson, a power outage on Dec. 15 from 8:15 a.m. to noon affected 6,100 PG&E customers, including businesses on Lincoln Avenue.

Work was being done at the corner of Curtner Avenue west of Stone Avenue that weekend that affected about 500 customers. The work was scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Swanson said.

"While doing that work, there was an unplanned outage due to equipment failure at Hamilton and Meridian avenues," he said.

Swanson said that by 11:45 a.m., power was restored to approximately 5,700 customers while the remaining 400 waited until 12:05 p.m.

"My phone was ringing off the hook," said Willow Glen Business Association Executive Director Norma Ruiz. "A lot of the businesses were told it was down for routine maintenance, but it was a miscommunication from PG&E. Of course, businesses were outraged."

Powell's Sweep Shoppe owner Neil Knotts found himself having to ship his gelatto to his Los Gatos store to keep it from going bad without refrigeration.

"I called PG&E and the recording says that it's a routine maintenance outage," Knotts said. "They gotta be out of their freakin' minds. It's the height of the Christmas season shopping. I had to send people home and find people to be on standby."

Knotts said that luckily this time he didn't lose any products but if indeed a routine outage, notice should have been given.

"It would have been so much nicer if we had gotten a heads up," he said.