Local
Power Outage Hits Downtown San Francisco
By Ana Boyadzhyan
Aug 3, 2008 - 11:57:12 PM

SAN FRANCISCO —Downtown San Francisco went without electricity for a few hours on Saturday, July 26. The power outage occurred at around 8:30 a.m. and affected various downtown streets and businesses.

About half of the Westfield San Francisco Centre shopping mall went dark, and remained closed until the afternoon. The power outage also hit the Standard Oil structure on Market Street as well as the Chronicle newspaper building on Mission Street.

On Fourth Street, the fully occupied San Francisco Marriott hotel also lost power but used backup power generators to regain electricity.

According to a statement by PG&E spokesperson J.D. Guidi in a San Francisco Chronicle report, the power blackout was due to an underground cable malfunction. During the malfunction, a report was made about smoke coming out of a manhole cover at First and Market streets, said Guidi.    

At around 5 p.m. electricity was restored to the Marriott hotel, with power being back up in most shops at the Westfield San Francisco Centre a half-hour later.

According to a utility official in the Chronicle report, residential customers weren’t affected by the blackout.