Editor’s note: This article was updated to include comments from Gavilan College. Last updated 6 p.m.
This article was written by BenitoLink intern Alexis Castro Juarez
Gavilan College canceled in-person morning classes on Feb. 22 because of power outages. The administration said classes in Hollister and online would continue to be held.
The college also canceled night in-person classes at its Gilroy campus Feb. 21 because of power outages, according to a message sent to students.
Gavilan said power returned to Gilroy Feb. 22 morning but not the college campus.
“After our team took time to assess the situation, a Gav Alert went out to let students know morning classes were cancelled and for employees to know they would work remotely,” Gavilan College Public Information Officer Rosie Zepeda said.
She said an expert electrician arrived on campus around 9 a.m. to assess the electrical situation and by 10:30 a.m. it had been remediated. She added afternoon classes, and other in person events such as athletics were held.
According to PG&E’s outage map, residents are experiencing outages throughout Santa Clara County due mostly to weather. The site says that Gavilan’s power was restored at 1:42 p.m. on Feb. 22.
On Feb. 21 PG&E said it was mobilizing personnel ahead of a significant cold and windy rainstorm in coastal areas.
“Incoming adverse weather could result in trees, limbs and other debris falling into power lines, damaging equipment and interrupting electric service,” the utility said.
A PG&E news release stated that PG&E has opened its Emergency Operations Center and local operations emergency centers in impacted regions to more efficiently allocate crews, materials and other resources to restoration efforts.
“The company is using its storm outage prediction models that help determine the potential timing, location, and number of power outages,” the release said. “The models allow the company to have extra crews on standby to deploy to areas hard hit by the storm. PG&E is also prestaging power poles, powerlines, transformers, and other electric equipment at yards throughout its service area to restore power to affected areas safely and as quickly as possible.”
PG&E said it did not expect the coming weather system to have the same impact as the series of atmospheric river storms that hit Northern and Central California in late December and early January.
“In that storm, more than 7,200 PG&E, contract and mutual-aid personnel were on duty, working to restore power to more than 2.8 million customers,” the release said. “More than 95% of those customers had their power restored in 24 hours or less.”
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