Power to almost 2,400 PG&E customers was knocked out for a brief period on Tuesday evening as a powerful winter storm battered Northern California and downed tree branches and caused localized flooding. 

According to PG&E, the outage was reported at 7:24 p.m. and spanned an area that included the intersection of Main Street and Louise Avenue and extended east to Highway 99 and south to Alameda Street. 

The power was out for roughly an hour before it was restored. 

As crews for the embattled utility company worked around the clock throughout the state to address weather-related issues from the first winter storm of the season – a storm that brought about gusts of wind in excess of 40 miles per hour in parts of the Northern San Joaquin and Southern Sacramento Valleys and is expected to dump several feet of snow at the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountains – residents braced for the worst as nearly an inch of rain fell in Manteca alone and created localized street flooding in neighborhoods thanks to an abundance of leaves that had been blowing all day. 

Smaller localized power outages were reported in Lathrop and Ripon as evening approached, but none of the smaller outages compared in size to the one in Manteca – which, by 8 p.m., was the largest active power outage in San Joaquin County. One region in North Central Stockton lost power around the same time to more than 1,100 customers, but the area was removed from both Highway 99 and I-5 while Manteca’s outage darkened a section of both sides of Highway 99 in between the Lathrop Road and Yosemite Avenue exits. 

According to the National Weather Service a Winter Storm Warning will remain in effect for all of Northern California through 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day as the cold storm dropped the snow level to less than 1,500 feet in many parts of the North State. On Tuesday evening snow was falling just outside of Sonora and low elevation communities such as Grass Valley, and with temperaturesfalling the snow level was expected to drop even further as more precipitation arrived. 

The Northern Sacramento Valley, which includes cities like Redding, are expected to receive up to three inches of snow, and with near whiteout conditions in some places travel during the storm – which just happens to fall during the busiest travel period of the entire year – is “highly discouraged.”

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.