. >> thanks for joining extra special continuing coverage, waiting for the press conference from pg&e on the power safety? >> for those of you tune into the cbs evening news you can

cap seven our sister station channel 44. as soon as they begin with the discussion we will go back to that life. let's take another look at the latest >> the fire stands more than 25,000 acres. officials urging residents and evacuation zones to leave while it is still light out. this is rough roughly 50,000 people and the major concern is the spiking strong winds. the national weather service for midnight to sunrise they could cause extremely fast andy roddick your behavior. >> what is the latest >> the view from the top of the salesforce timbre you are seeing the shuttle to the smoke the further you get away you look through a deep calm of atmosphere. from the top of the tower you

really see things. this is what it looks like when you register unhealthy. i would say planet being unhealthy if you have asthma, elderly, little kids. you don't have to be out in the stopped breathing it in. be back we want to return to the conference. >> appears to be strong, dangerous fire weather event the latest models and real-time observations we are tracking show a slight today model still suggestive will be very strong, stronger than the october 2017 northern california fire

weather even. all conditions needed will be present in this event. at this time we are forecasting strong north winds to develop in the sacramento valley and those will move down the valley and spread into adjacent to rain near epm tonight. and across the northern sierra and north coast in north bay between 10:00 p.m. and midnight tonight. the arrive in east bay shortly after midnight tonight. strongest winds expected overnight tonight into tomorrow morning. they remained gusty and continue tomorrow night into monday for many locations. in general we are expecting the peak to be overnight tonight into tomorrow morning. model showing potential for a mono event to develop in north

fresno counties around bass lake, oakhurst to name a few. early this morning once we saw the potential be closely coordinated with the national weather service in hanford on this potential there is a potential for this to develop in those communities. we are looking at a start time from 10:00 a.m. to noon tomorrow in the southern sierra and for general reference they are similar to diablo offshore events that develop and originate from the vicinity of lake mono and the mammoth lakes area. we also anticipate another santa ana wind event in kern county. these are currently forecast to begin monday the 202 midnight and last until nearly 1800 hours . this will be a very dynamic

wind event as it transitions and moves north to south through our pg&e territory. meteorology will continue to track the event 24 hours a day and we plan to use the nearly 1000 weather stations owned by pg&e, national weather service and the weather station twork to determine when the conditions are safe and we can issue the all clear as safely as possible so we can restore power to communities impacted as soon as possible. with wind speeds we are forecasting the model does suggest we are likely to see significant damage to trees and subsequently infrastructure. likely many trees will fall, branches will break and could affect power lines and polls.

highlighting that it may delay restoration in areas where damage maybe concentrated. all forecast agencies are aligned with strong and dangerous event. the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration have the storm prediction center that also forecast for fire weather, critical and extreme fire weather across north and south california that cover a population of 11 million californians for this event coming up other forecast agencies will be monitored such as the north and south operations predicted center forecasting high risk for significant fire rescue number of pg&e customers encapsulated within their footprint of high risk significant fires is 3.8 million. the national weather service, red flag warnings posted across a large portion of northern california into the southern

sierra. mono winds and that footprint covers a portion of pg&e customers near 2 million. the bay area national weather service calls this a long- duration extreme event. that is the graphic i am showing over my right shoulder. forecasting gusts 45-60 miles per hour with the highest peaks dusting potentially 65-8 0 miles per hour. remember they are very, very dry we are expecting a general relative humidity to be somewhere within the 5%-15% range throughout this event. as i said before in recent briefings we continue to coordinate closely with our federal forecasting partners like the national weather service. i wanto onally thank them for their coordination and they are true professionals, really good at

what they do. with that i will turn it back to you. >> good evening. i am the incident commander for the october 26 public safety power shut off event here to provide an operational between. first i want to begin by stating the event from october 23rd has been completed. having said that we have shy of 850 customers out of service in sonoma county. that were interrupted as a result of the public safety power shut off. we are all clear but need to remain out of service for those customers as we work with calfire with the kincade fire. we have an incident command

post set up in the general vicinity of the kincade fire, working closely with calfire coordinating efforts. in addition understand there are some evacuation efforts that were underway earlier in sonoma county. we coordinated efforts that the public safety power shut off event again this afternoon did not begin too early in the area as it would have negatively impacted the county's ability to facilitate those evacuations. i am pleased to report we are able to feel that request. we have begun implementing the public safety power shut off or approximately 940,000 customers across 36 counties. shut off begin just before this press conference roughly 1700 hours or 5:00 p.m.

at this time i will explain in detail the specific times as best i can. when people can expect the public safety power shut off to a curve, first, scott revi e large scope we have the large area of service to area territory impacted. we taking an effort to bring those areas of into seven zones or geographic zones. in the reason we did the is because weather conditions change and there are differences and start times where we are expecting to see high winds. we want to be able to react as close to real time as possible based on weather. a couple caveats here. first and foremost what i am about to tell you is part of the weather forecasting effort. these times could change. they have already changed a

couple times today. fortunately for us and customers the weather is coming in a little later than originally anticipated which allows us to start the d energization effort earlier as well. please keep that in mind. secondly, the times i give you in terms of start time of these interruptions is the start time. it is a process that takes up to 2 -three hours on average to deenergize the specific areas of the service territory. in close coordination with the california iso, transmission grid control center in distribution control centers. the first area i will speak to geographically is in the northern sierra foothills in the reading area. that has started at 1700 hours or five p.m. . we anticipate the all clear when we can begin restoration activities at 6:00 a.m. monday wind speeds in the area

we are anticipating sustained values of 35-45 miles an hour gustss 65. that geographic area represents roughly 205,000 customers. the second area is the north bay. north they begin at 1700 or 5:00 p.m. this evening. the all clear anticipated for monday, october 20 0800. wind speeds 40-55 miles an hour sustained impacts roughly 256,000 customers. the third area of reference is the southern sierra foothills. home that weather system comes in on sunday the 27th. we will begin the shut down process promptly at midnight tonight. we expect the all clear on monday at midnight.

sustained wind speeds 30-40 miles per hour with gusts 50-60 that represents roughly 86,000 customers. the next area of geography is the bay area south they east bay , begins at 2000 hours at 8:00 p.m. the all clear is monday morning 0800. sustained with values 35-45 miles an hour gusts 55-65 and that represents roughly 246,000 customers. the fifth area is along the north coast out to the humboldt area that will begin at 2100 hours are 9:00 p.m. the season. the all clear currently sunday at 4:00 p.m. or 1600 hours. sustained wind speeds 30-40 miles per hour gusts 50-60

roughly 146,000 customers. the second to last would be the kern county area. projected to be sunday at 9:00 p.m. , 2100 hours. all clear monday at about 1800 hours are 6:00 p.m. sustained 20-30 miles per hour justice of 40-50 miles per hour less than 1000 customers there. and the final area is the madeira fresno counties that scott spoke to with the mono wind areas. we believe the area of impact of severe winds will pick up sunday at 10:00 a.m. . winds will decrease and we will have all clear approximately 2200 or 10:00 p.m. on the same day, sunday. i don't know exactly when we will deenergize that area, because we have not identified

the scope yet. we identified the area of he severe winter will ds and log be in position. the next step is to identify assets that exist within the area and translate that into customers and erating activity that will help inform how far and it the risk time we have to start switching. in all roughly 940,000 customers, a very large event for us a very large event to manage. we are confident we can do this and we could do it safely. let's talk about restoration. i gave the all clear times in the all clear is representative of what we believe we will be able to start control restoration efforts. we spoke at previous press conferences what that process

involves. we need to control 100% of the infrastructure in the deenergized state, from its point of origin to the end of the line. from a mileage perspective, 31,000 miles of overhead conductor to patrol before we can restore. a huge effort for us, that represents 230 transmission lines, roughly 700 distribution circuit. we have over 6000 field personnel in position as soon as we deenergize the segment the system into smaller, more management parts and puts the system in a posture to be restored safely, quickly and efficiently as has been the case with previous psps events. we are also tidying, we have access to the fixed wing aircraft that has the ability to control transmission system at night.

due to its functionality we have a high risk camera and technology that allows us to see if conductors are in the air and in the clear and free from ignition risk. we plan to use that to free up helicopter resources to patrol the distribution system. in terms of eto are, important and we record is how important it is for folks so we can make plans and anticipate when we can be restored and get back to normal. our each your, estimated time of frustration, estimated to be 48 hours. as he mentioned that front end as it relates to start time restoration time is a sequence as well. that does not mean every customer is going to be out for 48 hours. it means we begin restoration activities at the times i mentioned and we believe we will incrementally restore all the way out but not have anyone

out past 48 hours. one thing we need to consider is damage. these are big winds, the strongest we have had in a number of years. we anticipate finding damage cases. the only in areas in which we are deenergized intentionally as part of the public safety power shut up plan, but we also anticipate outages that occur on an emergent basis in areas of the system that remain energized. it is important for the public to understand if you were notified, you are part of the psps scope and you went on the website and entered in your address and found you were not in scope that is true, but understand we could have other emergent based outages to your home. don't think that is an automatic correlation to psps. i just wanted to touch on that.

in terms of crcs community resource centers, we have 67 of them open at this time. the plan is to open 67 of them. that continues to increase. the number we are constantly communicating with counties. it would be the most logical places for these facilities to exist. crcs will offer restrooms, bottled water, electronic device charging, air- conditioned seating for up to 100 customers. also enhance the amenities there, offering coffee and dry food and things of that nature. in the interest of providing comfort. centers and youth, el dorado, placer, nevada and yuba county's opened at 2:00 p.m. today. we were able to stand those up early. the remainder will open for business at 0800 tomorrow and

he will stay open through tomorrow evening. if you'd like to review where you can find one of these crcs i would encourage all of you to visit pg&e .com/psps updates and we will have a listing of all those crcs. with that i am going to turn over to andy >> thank you mark good eveni i am the ceo and president of pacific gas & electric company what that means is i am responsible for all the operations. let me start my remarks and recognize that we have two ongoing fire events, the kincade fire in sonoma county and the tick fire. i mention these because i want to acknowledge the first responders currently battling those flames and all the

individual residents and citizens of california who have been evacuated or impacted the fires. i start there because it puts into context what we are talking about tonight. it is our absolute objective to ensure we do nothing we talk about 30,000 miles of conductor in the air that in normal circumstances provides continuous electric power to all customers. what we find ourselves experiencing what has been called a historic or significant wind event coming. typically in this industry, the way that would be handled would be reset back, hit these lines, they would be localized outages , we would prepare them. but we are in anything but a

typical situation. we have talked many times about the environment we are in, years of drought and dry fuel, low humidity, lack of rain. over 100 million dead trees across the state, all fuel. we get to the point it's not a major issue, becoming something we cannot allow to happen. when debris hits the wires, any spark can be an ignition source , a catastrophic wildfire. everything we do, a public safety power shut off is the last resort to make sure that in these conditions, our operations will not create a major public safety issue. that is why we do it. yesterday i was asked, when we were considering taking down high-voltage transmission, we had other factors we consider other than safety such as

interstate commerce and the integrity of the grid. the answer was no. safety is always our primary consideration. what we work hard at every day, 24 hours a day in the emergency operations center, is trying to figure out how we prt the public with the least amount of disruption. we recognize the hardship have not having power. we recognize the inconvenience. for some hardship. for sum it is life-threatening. we are working hard with all of our partners at the state and state agencies, tribal governments, to ensure the most vulnerable customers are being cared for. we are working with the people to understand the needs and do what we can to help because we recognize the impact the shut offs have. so it is an issue of safety. we often talk about the

condition of equipment and whether this is appropriate. this is situation beyond design standard. remember, this is about you will, humidity and years of drought. conditions we are in. even with high integrity equipment which we believe we have, even with meeting the requirements of right of way clearing which we believe we do, the level of winds gusting to almost 80 miles an hour presents a real threat and opportunity for a catastrophic fire. and we will not let that happen. for the first time since we have been doing psps we actually increased the level of customers in scope. mark talked about 940,000 accounts, roughly 2.5 million customers are impacted. the reason it has increased

because the weather indicated needed to make a shift in scope. as we do that, and marked talk about various phases of denergization, we have opportunities to reconfigure drive that down. but we will notake those riskss unless we are confident that we can shut things off correctly, that we can protect our customers. is a complicated process. one of the things you have to understand we have to make the calls before the weather comes. we have to have 6000 people in the field switching, manually opening circuit. it is dangerous work. we want to do it safely and get out ahead of weather. the power will be off well before we witnessed the weather. the power will go off and you may never witness the weather because you are connected to a place that doesn't get impacted by it. let may be very clear.

we don't do this because it is the easy thing to do, we do it because it is the safe and right thing to do. the challenging thing to do. the number 1 priority is for safety. the other thing, we are all in this together. this is a california statewide event. you need to read the news, pay attention to the weather. it has broad impacts. we are all in this together. one thing you all can do is be prepared while if you have energy while your lights are on please prepare for not having that power. charger devices. get the support you need. make sure you have water, nonperishable food. make sure you check in on your neighbors and loved ones. even if you are not in the area. so you can make sure they are safe. we also have a question of weather uncertainty. i did not get a notice and i had a short impact that is

because wind changes. as good as scott is predicting the weather is still a prediction. it's the weather and it changes. we try to make sure we can be responsible and agile as it does. you will get notices and times won't be precise. me tell you one thing if you are in a red flag warning zone, if you are in one of those zones it can happen to you. even if we haven't given you notice, please, please, please prepare. sure you notice there are hurricanes on the east coast they have cones of uncertainty. if you are in a red flag warning spot you are in the cone of uncertainty. it doesn't mean it will be impactful to you, but please prepare because it can. from preparedness please check our website. we have hints with advice. use it, make sure you update your contact information. it is important for us to contact you

when there is an emergency. having the latest information is helpful. please do that. we appreciate your patience, we know how disruptive this is. we work very hard to make sure we minimize the impact. we have to work together on all this. let me also say we are not out of the woods yet. we are dealing with this public safety power shut off. we watch the weather all the time and one of the things we are seeing is a pattern. we may have another weather system, not with this intensity, early to middle next week. what does that mean? we are committed to restoring every customer we shut off and hopefully will have everybody back with power prior to the next weather events.

it is early so we won't talk about in much detail but there is the potential so we have to prepare. as your power comes back on please use the time to prepare again. you will talk more about the as weather patterns become clear. we will probably talk about that tomorrow. again, we do this for your safety. we don't do it because it's easy for us to do it because it is the right to do to make sure we can protect and property and loved ones from a catastrophic wildfire. that i will stop and we can take your questions. >> we will start over here. . >> abc7. sonoma county has been ordered to evacuate. an emergency that was just sent out to me can you tell us more on that? >> i don't have more info. >> i believe the evacuations

are due to the kincade fire. i speculate, but i do know that is an active buyers seeing. if i take that data element a factor in the high wind activity, that is coming in, that could result in some movement. i think the evacuation orders, as i read them from calfire, are the right thing to do for public safety. that is all i have on that. >> i would highly suggest following that direction. >> today, the governor was speaking about how many people are just receiving those notifications now. is pg&e going to get better at notifying its