San Francisco: Power was restored Sunday to the bulk of the 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco impacted by a massive outage a day earlier that caused major disruptions in the city.

About 17,000 customers remained without power as of noon Sunday (1.30 am IST Monday), Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said. PG&E said earlier its crews were working to restore electricity in several neighbourhoods and small areas of downtown San Francisco following Saturday's outage.

PG&E, in a statement, said it expects to restore power to remaining customers no later than 2 pm Monday (3.30 am IST Tuesday).

“The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive, and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” the utility said, referring to the substation at 8th and Mission streets. That fire has been blamed for some of the blackouts. The outage remains under investigation.

PG&E said it mobilised additional engineers and electricians to help with restoration efforts.

“This is a very complex work plan and will require the highest amount of safety focus to ensure safe work actions,” PG&E said. No injuries have been reported.

The outage, which occurred shortly after 1 pm on Saturday (2.30 am IST Sunday), left a large swath of the northern part of the city without power that began to grow in size. At its peak, the outage represented roughly one-third of the utility company's customers in the city.

At about 4 pm on Saturday (5.30 am IST Sunday), PG&E posted on X that it had stabilized the grid and no further outages were expected.

Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops, and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations on Saturday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were “significant transit disruptions” happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops. Waymo, the operator of driverless ride-hailing vehicles, suspended its services. At least one video posted on social media appeared to show a Waymo vehicle stopped in the middle of an intersection.

AP