The Oakland Airport in Northern California was closed down Sunday night due to a significant power loss brought on by a fire at an electrical substation.
After a fire that started at a Pacific Gas and Electric substation at approximately 1pm, more than 50,000 customers in the Bay Area were affected, and flights out of the region were grounded.
Social media images and videos depict trapped travelers at the airport waiting at their gates and to get through security, which was closed for many hours.
At after 2.50 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, a PG&E official acknowledged the widespread outage on Twitter and said that they are “currently examining the facts.”
At this moment, it is unclear what caused the outage. The event occurs at a time when a number of substations in the US have been targeted by criminals hoping to cause havoc with the electrical infrastructure.
Soon after 3 o’clock, an Oakland Fire Department battalion chief said that the fire had been extinguished and that PG&E personnel were investigating the cause.
In an interview with local media, the battalion chief said, “Roughly around one o’clock this afternoon we were summoned for a fire emanating from inside the PG&E yard.”
The Oakland Fire official said, “We were allowed to enter the PG&E yard and discovered that there was a transformer actively burning.”
Before a reason is found, PG&E personnel will need to “actually look at all the equipment.”
Hundreds of passengers were stranded at their gates and forced to wait in the security queue as a result of the outage, so the damage had already been done.
In one video posted by Matt Ashlock on Twitter, travelers are at a halt as the security lines are almost completely empty.
However, when incoming travelers arrived, baggage claim was closed, which led to even greater delays within the Northern California airport.
Shortly before 3 o’clock, Ashlock tweeted that the security line was starting to move again and that it seemed like the computers were back up and operating.
How many flights were disrupted by the disruption is currently unknown.
Due to the interruption, the Bay Area Rapid Transit also reduced Sunday’s service to and from the airport, although it soon resumed.
Tamar Sarkissian, a corporate communications representative for PG&E, said in a tweet on Sunday afternoon that she and her colleagues are looking into it.
We are aware of the significant outage in Oakland that will affect around 50,000 customers. We are looking into the specifics and will let you know when restoration will take place as soon as we can,’ she stated.
Twitter users, however, were not amused by her comment and criticized the nearby electrical service provider for having “poor equipment.”
One Twitter user asked, “Why is your equipment continuously catching fire?”
“Your tools are always catching fire.” Another individual commented, “You should be shut down and turned into a public utility.”
Even though there have been several substation assaults in recent months throughout the whole United States, it is still unclear if Sunday’s event was a targeted strike.
At least nine substations in North Carolina, Washington, and Oregon have lost electricity to thousands of consumers during the last three months.
The assaults worry individuals who live in states and regions where a shortage of electricity might have devastating consequences.
In Moore County, North Carolina, two power substations were targeted in December, resulting in the loss of electricity for almost 45,000 people.
Several clients had power outages for as long as five days.
After a few weeks, a second assault took place in Randolph County, North Carolina.
Two individuals were accused in Washington State shortly after New Year’s Day for targeting four power plants on Christmas, leaving thousands of people in the dark and the cold.
Law enforcement officers discovered that the two individuals had planned the assaults as a pretext for breaking into a nearby store.
Throughout mid-November and December of 2022, there were six assaults on substations between Washington and Oregon.
Several lawmakers have raised concerns about the safety and security of substations around the nation due to the rising frequency of assaults.
In recent weeks, legislation has been suggested in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, and Arizona that would mandate around-the-clock protection at the power plants or severe penalties for assaults.
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