# Big power outage in the San Francisco area **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 21, 2025, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907 "2025-12-21T02:42:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/1 "2025-12-21T02:42:30Z")
Any Dopers affected by this? It seems to be from an exploded transformer, and there’s no timeline on when power will be restored. [https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/power-outage-pge-san-francisco/](https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/power-outage-pge-san-francisco/) ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/2 "2025-12-21T02:48:52Z")
It looks like it’s going to cancel our plans for the evening, but otherwise we’re fortunate to reside in the unaffected part of the city. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/3 "2025-12-21T02:52:30Z")
Coincidentally, I had just finished watching a clip of the 1989 Earthquake when I went back to the Dope and saw this thread. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/4 "2025-12-21T03:42:29Z")
I had wondered how this would affect the airport, and looking at maps of the Bay area, the airports are not in the blacked-out zone. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/5 "2025-12-21T05:17:41Z")
No problem here. I live in the southern part of the city, near Daly City. (We are generally ignored as a location that is actually part of the city, so I can’t be too sad that we were also ignored for this problem). ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/6 "2025-12-22T03:58:42Z")
I’m surprised to see there’s still a substantial area without power. There has been no effect here, about 20 miles south of the city. I hope they get it taken care of soon. There’s supposed to be a bomb cyclone coming in a couple days from now, and they’ll need all available hands to deal with the inevitable outages from that storm. > **[PG&E Outage Center - View Outage Map](https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outage-tools/outage-map/)** ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/7 "2025-12-22T07:55:33Z")
Most of that area, at least as I write, is Golden Gate Park. That makes it look somewhat bigger than it actually is. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/8 "2025-12-22T20:35:39Z")
As of 8am this morning, watching the tv news, there were still a few thousand without power. A (city & county) Supervisor serving one of the districts heavily affected is making noises about a hearing to explore what exactly happened. Not a total waste of time and money, but one supposes that with an exploding transformer there will be knock-on effects down the line, each of which will have to be tracked down and repaired. A hearing might only be useful because no-one trusts PG&E to tell you the right time of day\*. However, I predict no surprises should such a hearing take place. \*Every time I hear one of their commercials talking about the infrastructure improvements that PG&E is making, I remind myself that these are being paid for by the ratepayers, not the stockholders. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-power-outage-in-the-san-francisco-area/1025907/9 "2025-12-25T02:06:17Z")
[![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/tNVoyYY.jpeg "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/tNVoyYY) Substation seems to mean different things in other parts of the world. This is what we think one is here. A fire at a place like this would be a big deal.