SAN JOSE — Mayor Sam Liccardo threatened legal action Thursday if PG&E did not take immediate action to replace aging equipment that failed during the height of the current historic heat wave, knocking out power to three major hospitals and thousands of residents.
The South Bay was the hardest hit by power outages over the last several days of record heat. With San Jose predicted to hit a record-tying 100 degrees on Thursday, more outages could be on the way.
But its was the widespread outages on Tuesday night that has Liccardo most concerned.
“I have deep concerns about the safety of our residents and the viability of San José small businesses struggling against ongoing failures of a power grid hampered by poor maintenance and outdated equipment,” said Liccardo in a news release. “The march of climate change will continue, but other California cities subjected to far worse heat do not suffer the rate of power outages as the City of San José. Our residents’ health and safety depend on a reliable grid, and PG&E has an obligation to provide that to San José ratepayers.”
Along with more than 30,000 households, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, Regional Medical Center of San Jose and
O’Connor Hospital all lost power.
Officials said the problems at the hospitals began around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday during the height of the week-long heat wave.
“We were informed that the cause was a PG&E substation failure,” officials said in an email to KPIX. “The PG&E outage lasted until about 1:30 am. The hospitals’ back-up generators came online immediately and remained functional at O’Connor and in most of SCVMC.”
“However, back-up generators failed for a few SCVMC buildings approximately two hours after the initial PG&E outage. The generators came back online at approximately 12:30 a.m. PG&E power was restored at both SCVMC and O’Connor at approximately 1:40 a.m.”
The emergency department at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center was forced to be closed to stroke, heart attack, trauma and ambulance arrivals.
“Patients were triaged and discharged appropriately, and seven patients were transferred to other facilities,” officials told KPIX. “Another nine patients were moved to other locations within our hospital. In addition, some elective procedures scheduled for today (Wednesday) were canceled due to uncertainty about how long the PG&E power outage would last. There was no significant impact to our blood bank or blood supply.”
Additionally, the mayor’s office said in some East San José neighborhood — such in the retail area around Tully and King –residents reported that the power outages also took down cellular networks operated by AT&T, rendering cellular customers helpless to make a phone call or send a text to seek assistance.
“This is unacceptable,” Liccardo said. “We need to better understand why these failures disproportionately afflict PG&E’s operations in San José. More importantly, and we need to get them fixed—whether PG&E does so voluntarily, or under judicial or regulatory mandate. We can no longer merely hope that PG&E will live up to its obligation to San José ratepayers to do so. “
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