Turn out the lights, the party's over.... it is really tough to be a small business owner, especially restaurants, that are just coming back then lose food in the freezers if they don't have their own generators.
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Fortunately, mountains are to the South West to South East of me so the dangerous North wind doesn't dip down to the ground here very strong so much of the SF Bay Area in the flatlands ride these out wondering what all the fuss is about except for the news reports.
Power Shutoffs: Dangerous winds trigger massive outages in Bay Area
PG&E officials say the high fire-risk conditions are expected to last until Tuesday.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Thousands are in the dark Monday morning because of PG&E's Public Safety Power Shutoffs. It's likely to stay that way until late Tuesday when the wind event, dubbed the "strongest winds of the season" is over.
PG&E officials say because of the high winds, extremely low humidity, dry vegetation and severe drought, the utility company has knocked out power to 361,000 customers in 36 counties. PG&E says nearly 106,000 customers in the Bay Area have been impacted.
Overnight, gusts reached 89 mph in Middletown, 82 mph on Mount Saint Helena, 62 mph on Mount Diablo, 58 mph at Oakland International Airport, 57 mph at the Pittsburg Marina, according to the National Weather Service.
MORE: Find out if you'll be impacted by PSPS here
Here's a county-by-county breakdown of how many Bay Area customers are expected to lose power:
Alameda County: 16,329 customers, 795 Medical Baseline customers
Contra Costa County: 17,966 customers, 883 Medical Baseline customers
Lake County: 21,621 customers, 1,572 Medical Baseline customers
Marin County: 13,809 customers, 443 Medical Baseline customers
Napa County: 11,026 customers, 393 Medical Baseline customers
San Mateo County: 3,671 customers, 93 Medical Baseline customers
Santa Clara County: 4,182 customers, 205 Medical Baseline customers
Santa Cruz County: 13,872 customers, 955 Medical Baseline customers
Solano County: 1,597 customers, 96 Medical Baseline customers
Sonoma County: 23,464 customers, 1,164 Medical Baseline customers
In Alameda County, crews say it was really busy overnight with wires and trees down throughout because of the strong winds in the area. Crews put out a wildfire along eastbound I-580 in Castro Valley right before Eden Canyon. The Alameda County Fire Department says heavy brush caught fire around 12:45 this morning.
"These will be equivalent, if not stronger than the Tubbs Fire of 2017 and the Kincade of 2019," said Paul Lowenthal, Assistant Fire Marshal of Santa Rosa Fire Department.
He said they're trying to get the message out to the community that this one will be from everything they can tell -- much different from what the area has experienced this far.
Restaurant owners at TIPS Roadside in Kenwood are angry for what happened mid-afternoon Sunday.
"At 3 o'clock boom power went out an hour before it was supposed to and it was really disappointing cause we needed that time to get everything on ice," says TIPS Roadside owner Andrew Pryfogle.
His wife Susie says, "I don't know if they saw wind coming early and that's why they chose to shut down early but it was just frustrating."
Now there are dirty dishes sitting in the dark because when that power went out so did any use of their well water. Those from PG&E say that of the more than 24-,000 outages in Sonoma County Sunday night, around 1,400 of them are due to weather. They say it's likely those high winds that caused an early outage at TIPS Roadside.
The Pryfogle's are now just hoping that they don't lose what is on ice in their freezer. They lost more than $15,000 worth of food a few weeks ago.
LIVE: Track winds on Live Doppler 7
In Sonoma many residents have generators and are using them to power their refrigerators. That being said, many here are growing frustrated over another shutoff.
"It's just getting awful, tiring going through this I've lived here all my life and haven't seen anything like this in the last three years since 2017," says Bill Parisi of Sonoma.
In Moraga, college student Jennifer Rinefort got a notification before the PSPS.
Luz Pena: Do you have a plan?
Jennifer: Yes. I just booked a flight back home tomorrow just because for school like I need wifi.
PG&E says the PSPS is likely to last 2 days but this college student is not taking any chances and leaving the area.
Many just hoping that times get better. Parisi said, "You know everything is so much harder right now because of COVID and fires and power outages and everyone is saying I can't wait until 2020 is over and hopefully '21 will be much better."
Contra Costa County Fire Protection District is staging its crews in fire prone areas.
"With the first that have already occurred this summer this is one of the most dangerous times of the year," said Tracie Dutter, Captain Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
Air resources are with Con air 1 and 2. These helicopters are equipped with a medical response team and a fire bucket to create a line of defense ahead of the ground crews.
"We call it dipping. We dip into the water and fill the bucket and fly over the fire and drop the water," said Contra Costa Fire Captain and flight paramedic, Jason Dosh.
Both crew members have to agree that it's safe to fly. They're projecting 20 - 30 miles an hour winds this weekend. If that's the case they have the green light to fly.
For now this pilot and firefighter duo are monitoring the weather conditions as they gear up for deployment in the morning in case of fires.
"You can see right now it's very high winds offshore but on shore we are doing ok. There is a little bit of high wind coming down through Redding into Sacramento" said Chris Beasley, Coco Fire Protection District Pilot.
The "peak" period of concern will be from 6 p.m. Sunday through 7 to 10 a.m. on Monday and a second round of winds is expected on Monday night to Tuesday morning, PG&E Meteorologist Scott Strenfel says.
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