PG&E informational statement today.

Thousands are still without power across Humboldt County, after the various waves of the atmospheric river blew down trees and electric poles all across the state.

Today, in between the last storm and the next, residents of Humboldt’s hardest-hit area — the Highway 101 corridor from Trinidad north — got some welcome news. Pacific Gas and Electric moved up its estimated time of restoration of services to Friday, Jan. 13, which is at least a little better than the original estimate of Jan. 20.

PG&E issued a video this afternoon — see above — running down its efforts across the state. In total, it said, they currently have 167 crews working on getting power back up in the North Coast region, which includes everything north of the Golden Gate, and east to Lake and Napa counties. Utility officials said they were working around the clock, and also attempting to mobilize more crews.  

Ron Richardson, PG&E vice president for the North Coast region, said, in particular, that they’re trying to prioritize the Trinidad area.

“The areas of Orick and Trinidad have some extended HORs,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can right now to deploy additional resources to pull those times in.”

Richardson added that the utility has also deployed mobile generators to keep some areas of the county online.

“One of the things we’re also doing during this event is we’re mobilizing our temporary generation fleet,” he said. “Currently, right now, we are generating an area called Willow Creek and Hoopa — that’s up in our Trinity and Humboldt area — with 8.75 megawatts in Willow Creek supporting 2,447 customers, and in Hoopa 6.25 megawatts supporting 2083 customers. In Petrolia, which is west of Garberville, we have 2.5 megawatts supporting 198 customers.”

Adam Wright, PG&E chief operating officer, said that the company will start providing daily, county-level updates on restoration work at the website pgecurrents.com.