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City Light Crews Move to Repair Damage From California’s Carr Complex Fire

City Light crews working to restore electrical infrastructure in the Mendocino Complex Fire area successfully completed the projects assigned to them by local utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) on Wednesday, August 2018.

PG&E was impressed with the quality of City Light’s efforts and re-assigned the crews to work on restoring infrastructure near Whiskeytown, Calif., an area which suffered massive damage in the Carr Complex fire.

South Field Operations Supervisor Ed Hill of Seattle City Light was proud of the job done by City Light crews and the resulting comments given by PG&E staff.

“They’re more than happy with our work and how we adapt to their standards,” said Hill. “Our team tackled a job up a mountain to a communication tower that no one else wanted to touch because of the terrain and line complexity. The communication tower is now back on utility power.”

PG&E reassigned the City Light crews to the Whiskeytown area on Wednesday to re-install and repair transmission lines along with mutual aid crews from San Diego Gas & Electric. The crews are working from a staging area near Redding, Calif., and will also tackle distribution line repairs nearby.

City Light’s crews have been working in difficult conditions. Temperatures in the area are expected to hit triple digits for the remainder of the week, and the transmission work in the Whiskeytown area will require cross-country hiking in national forest lands.

Nevertheless, “spirits are high,” according to Hill. “The crews are holding up well with dust masks and cooling towels.”

On a call today with the mutual aid crews, Interim General Manager and CEO Jim Baggs told the team to keep up the great work and Transmission and Distribution Officer Bernie Ziemianek urged them to stay safe.

If all goes well, City Light’s current mutual aid assignment in California will wrap up on Sunday, August 12.