Last weekend’s winter storm brought a lot of welcome rain, but it also took a toll.
A group of unfortunate Precitaville neighbors on Treat went without power for many hours, until PG&E installed a handsome mobile generator to get the lights back on:
Neighbor Rusty got the executive summary:
Update on the PGE outage Friday around Precita Park (8-9pm aprox), and the extended outage on Treat.
I talked to PG&E and got the lowdown on what happened. Friday night, around 8pm, an underground high voltage line that runs along the south side of Precita between Harrison and Treat shorted out. This is the line that feeds the power pole at the bottom of Treat.
It will take several days to permanently fix the cable on Precita that feeds our street. It is unclear if this will involve digging up steet/sidewalk, they’re still investigating the details.
This explains why when the first outage happened it affected a wider area. The short tripped breakers/fuses upstream. PG&E was able to isolate the problem area (the feeder to Treat) and disconnect it, returning power to the adjoining neighborhood.
They have installed a generator on Treat in front of Oaks and the rear of Immaculate Conception. This has been connected to the power lines going up and down treat. This was slightly involved, as in required that they disconnect all the transformers up and down the street, and install jumpers onto the 120/240 feeds so it would continue up the street.
Neighbor Paul spotted a world-famous piece of landscape art: A spiral jetty in Precita Park!
And then, of course, that big old tree fell in Precita Park. Sadness. Also, largeness:
This morning I saw a City crew was cutting away at the big fallen tree and stuffing the parts into a chipper. The tree is gone, but its biomass will live on. Farewell, Big Precita Tree.
Perhaps to make up for that, conditions were perfect for rainbows on Sunday afternoon, as Bernalwood activated the Rainbow Alert Warning System. Sure enough, at about 3:30 on Sunday afternoon, Neighbor Darcy captured the above view from Berhal Hill of a double rainbow bringing euphoria to the Mission and downtown. Neighbor Brian verified it as well:
One other blessing this storm brought us: A fresh blanket of fluffy snow on Bernal Hill! Conditions are perfect this morning at Ski Bernalwood, and here’s a photo taken just moments ago as one lucky skier scored first tracks beneath Sutrito Tower:
Have fun out there!
PHOTOS: Rainbows at top, Darcy Lee. PG&E by Neighbor Rusty. Spiral Jetty by Neighbor Paul. Fallen tree by Neighbor Merin. Powder skiing on Bernal Hill by Telstar Logistics
Bernalwood 
That ‘big old tree’ was a black acacia, an Acacia melanoxylon, now understood to be an invasive species. I, for one, hope it is replaced with something more appropriate. One of my least favorite species.
yeah, after that mandatory outrageously expensive utility undergrounding years ago that was going to improve everything, prevent outages and raise our property values, we get fewer tv channels, the audio and video are not synchronized, we can no longer record programs, there is loud beeping in our ears if someone calls while we’re on the phone and we lose power completely when it freaking rains. thank you, San Francisco city government, AT&T and PG&E for improving our lives.