A pge outage cut electricity to about 1,000 customers in Amador, Calaveras and Alpine counties around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, leaving neighborhoods along Highway 4 in the dark during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Pacific Gas and Electric said a crew was at the outage site making inspections and would repair any damage found, with power expected back by 10:45 a.m. The loss of service hit three Mother Lode counties at a time when many households were still awake, away or making holiday plans before sunrise.
PG&E did not say what caused the outage, but utility crews often trace problems to damaged or overloaded lines and equipment. Cables, transformers and other electrical gear can fail in heat or snow, and the work now underway is meant to find whether that is what happened here.
The timing made the outage more disruptive than a routine morning interruption. A stretch of darkness in the middle of the night can rattle traffic, delay travel and put added pressure on homes that rely on electric appliances, even if the restoration window is measured in hours rather than days.
What matters next is simple: whether the inspections turn up a repair that can be fixed by PG&E’s 10:45 a.m. target, or whether the outage lasts longer than the utility first expected. For the customers along Highway 4, that answer will determine whether the holiday weekend starts with lights or with another wait.
