Bay Area Businesses Balk At Possible PG&E Power Outages During Wildfire Season
(KPIX 5) -- With fire season now getting underway, Pacific Gas and Electric is cautioning it could cut power for up to five days in some locations to reduce the risk of wildfires. But Bay Area business owners are coming to grips with what a long outage can mean for their business.
Paul Langlie and his partner Reese Curley run a successful auto repair and custom hot rod restoration shop in Oakland. It's a busy business that Langlie says cannot go without electricity.
"Five days would be crippling for us," said Langlie. "It wouldn't be worth the payroll to have my guys here because I couldn't keep them busy enough, my customers would lack service and my telephones wouldn't even work without power."
Langlie says they can't afford a generator big enough for their electrical needs. "When you're talking about multiple days, I just don't' know what we'd be able to do."
Across town, Saul's Restaurant and Delicatessen is a Berkeley icon. Good food, friendly staff and happy customers, but owner Peter Levitt says the potential of losing electricity for days would be devastating. "You'd lose your full inventory, anything that's refrigerated," said Levitt.
Levitt is trying to plan ahead and prepare for the worst. He says earthquakes used to be his main worry. "So, I started to look into getting a generator, to get you through emergencies but, we use 400 amps of two and three phase electricity. So, you'd need an 18-wheeler generator."
Both businesses have been around for many years. Neither is sure what to expect this summer.
