Businesses hit hard by power outage across Monterey Peninsula

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV) -- Many businesses in the Monterey Peninsula had to close up shop or offer modified services as a result of a large outage affecting more than 21,000 customers early Thursday morning.

Shoppers were met with signs saying businesses were closed like this Panera location in Seaside.

And if you were looking to try and get your car serviced or to buy a new car, this Toyota dealership in Seaside was also having issues helping people out.

Car salesman, Brandon Pina, said services involving internet were shut down leaving the dealer unable to send loans to banks.

Pina said the dealership had to cancel appointments early in the day with a lot of uncertainty as to when the power would be restored.

"Just like everybody else we have a busy day and things going on," said Pina. "But it's difficult for customers to plan out their day now and figure out what they're going to do."

And just traveling to the dealership was a headache with power to traffic lights off throughout much of the Peninsula.

PG&E said the outage was do to equipment failure.