© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A tree blocks a road after it fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S., January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves
23
(Reuters) – More than 220,000 homes and businesses were still without power on Tuesday as severe flooding hit California after a massive storm last week, according to data from PowerOutage.us.
Bad weather disrupted road travel with flash flooding and rock slides and wreaked havoc on the state’s power grid, leaving tens of thousands of Californians without power.
According to PowerOutage.us, the utility with the most outages was Pacific Gas and Electric Co (PG&E (NYSE:)) with more than 190,000 customers without power, followed by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District with 22,900.
PG&E is a unit of the California energy company PG&E Corp.
“More than 5,000 dedicated employees are currently responding to the storm, including contractors, and additional resources are expected to arrive and help in the coming days,” PG&E said on its website Monday.
At least a dozen deaths have been attributed to back-to-back storms that have battered California since December 26. The six storms since shortly after Christmas have been accompanied by strong waves that have battered coastal communities, as well as ferocious gales. -Force winds that have uprooted thousands of trees weakened by the prolonged drought.
