Ben Lomond residents get power back Friday evening

Out in Ben Lomond, most people finally got back power at around 7:30 Friday night, but they had to endure another long day without it.

Crews were busy along Highway 9 working well into the night trying to restore power to residents who did not have it yet.

Many Ben Lomond residents have been without power for three days, which means no phone calls, no internet, plenty of frustration.

“It means even though we have a holding tank, we have no water because our well isn’t pumping anymore,” said Bridget Tapia, a Ben Lomond resident. “So we’re running out of water, and I have two disabled people in my home that I care for.”

People are curious why crews had to change a power line pole the day after a wide scale planned shutoff. At Masood’s Liquor and Deli, the extended power outage has cost them business.

“We couldn’t take any credit card transactions yesterday, all of our ATMs were down, so it was cash only. Lost quite a good amount of sales just because of that,” said Caden Davison, a cashier at Masood’s Liquor and Deli.

KION asked PG&E why places like Ben Lomond and Brookdale had a longer wait than the rest of the county. They told us it is because the more remote areas are sometimes tougher to get to, either by helicopter or on foot. Inspecting certain power line, they say, takes more time.

“We have found about 23 instances of damage to our electric lines (this week). So obviously, there needs to be repairs to those,” said Evelyn Escalera, a PG&E spokesperson.

KION also asked PG&E if they believed the power shut off prevented a wildfire in Santa Cruz County this week, but they say they are unable to answer that question.

KION 2019