Santa Cruz County prepares for another planned PG&E power shutoff

Boulder Creek residents are upset about PG&E’s planned public safety power shutoffs. After power outages over the past few days in the town, some shop owners were forced to throw out their perishable items.

Residents are getting tired of their power being turned on and off again.

“Not happy, getting kinda sick of it but what’re you gonna do,” said John Moxon who lives in Boulder Creek.

The outages melted ice cream at the Redwood Keg Liquor and Deli shop, forcing them to throw out a new shipment.

Alexandra Presswood, whose family owns the business, said a lot of people came in to buy water and ice.

“A lot of people don’t have generators, like i don’t have one at home so you need a lot of ice in the fridge,” Presswood.

A PG&E spokesperson said some customers had power restored Monday between 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. and others Tuesday between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. after a previous public safety power shutoff.

Now, 5,408 PG&E customers are set to lose power in Santa Cruz County Tuesday night.

Despite some people feeling the shutoffs are a nuisance, they understand the outages happen for a reason.

“I do know some people who lost their daughter in the Paradise Fire up by the golf course, and they live there now, so I get why they’re doing it but it almost seems like they’re being cruel to us at this point,” Moxon said.

Over in Santa Cruz, the police department sent additional officers on patrol to prepare for any possible outages.

A PG&E spokesperson said Santa Cruz will likely lose power late Tuesday night.

“There’s always a lot of concerns: traffic issues, safety issues of people walking around in the darkness, in addition to, there are a few people that will take advantage of situations to steal, and so we’ll be prepared,” said Santa Cruz Chief of Police Andrew Mills.

The nearest PG&E community resource center to this area is Highlands County Park in Ben Lomond. It will open at 8 a.m. Wednesday.