Sunday, 10 a.m. — Power has been partially restored to some residents in Palo Alto this morning, with more expected to be restored by noon.
Power was restored to some customers in the Crescent Park, Duvenick-St. Francis area, Palo Alto Utilities said in a Tweet at 7:23 a.m. after downed trees had caused outage to more than 700 customers.
Less than 100 customers remained without power this morning, with full restoration expected by midday. On Saturday, a group of about 100 city electric customers lost their power after a bird hit power lines. But the power has since been restored.
Saturday, 3 p.m. — An estimated 106 customers in the 3300 block of Alma Street are without power at this hour, according to the City of Palo Alto’s Utilities Department. The city says that it’s possibly because a bird hit the power lines. The estimated time of restoration is around 5 p.m. The utilities department is providing updates on its Twitter page.
Birds, balloons — isn’t it time for the city to upgrade its electrical grid instead of wasting our money on a fiber optic system they can’t / won’t support any better than they do our electrical power?
Delusions of grandeur. Thanks heavens we’ve voted to give them the eternal right to keep overcharging us whenever they want more money from us.
I’m not sure how upgrading the grid would avoid blackouts due to birds and balloons running into power lines.
Compared with problems elsewhere in the world, we in Palo Alto are lucky with our electrical service.
Undergrounding power lines would definitely prevent outages due to birds or balloons. But the city has shifted half the cost to homeowners who don’t want to fund their share or can’t afford it.
DJ, decades ago — about 25? yrs ago — when our neighborhood got underground wiring, we had the “choice” of paying the contractor of our choice uofront or accepting the city’s choice of contractor who was paid in installments added to the monthly utility bills.
We had no choice in the matter — just in how we paid.