ARVIN, Calif. (KGET) — Thousands of Arvin residents were without power for a third day following a massive outage due to Wednesday’s storm.
PG&E said power was expected to be restored by noon Friday, but that time passed. Instead, they updated customers Friday morning explaining power was expected to be restored by 7 p.m. Friday. A PG&E outage map showed several neighborhoods and outlying areas were still without power after 7 p.m.
City officials said Friday night that PG&E crews could not fully restore power due to “additional complications” and power was lost at a cooling center at Bear Mountain Elementary School.
The cooling center has been relocated to Sierra Vista Elementary School’s cafeteria. The school is located at 300 Franklin St. The emergency cooling center will remain open until services are fully restored officials said in a statement.
Residents are encouraged to use the emergency center at Sierra Vista Elementary, but that pets won’t be accommodated at the school. Visitors are also encouraged to use face coverings at the center.
The outage left many residents outraged, questioning what they should do next.
Some said they have even resorted to sleeping outside because it was too stuffy indoors without air conditioning.
“We’ve had to leave out of the city to go to a park, getting up really early to be out of the apartment complex, it is suffocating in there, super humid,” Arvin resident Andrea Jacinto said. “There is no breeze that goes in and especially our side the sun hits our apartment so its pure heat you feel.”
The outage impacted 5,000 residents, but PG&E officials said crews have since restored power to over 1,100 customers.
PG&E says residents may qualify for the PG&E Safety Net Program, which offers $25 to $100 payments to customers who are without power for more than 48 hours. You can find out more about the program at this site.