The power went out Wednesday morning for more than 12,000 PG&E customers in the Santa Rosa area, but crews were able to restore power faster than first anticipated, the ultility said.
At about 9:45 a.m., the Santa Rosa Fire Department said on social media power had been restored to all but 16 customers outside Santa Rosa city limits.
The first reports of the outage on the west side of Santa Rosa came at about 7:15 a.m., and PG&E's outage map indicated 12,062 customers were affected. The Santa Rosa Fire Department estimated it amounted to about 27,000 people.
PG&E later said it was an EPSS outage, where equipment with Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings shuts off power within one-tenth of a second of when a hazard strikes a line to prevent a spark.
The exact cause of the outage was unclear.
The utility initially estimated it would have power restored by 4 p.m.
Weather forecasts showed the high temperature in Santa Rosa was expected to be 85 degrees.
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