A sweeping power outage plunged San Francisco into darkness on Saturday, affecting 130,000 homes and businesses, as confirmed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E). This unexpected blackout cast a shadow over a significant portion of the city, impacting neighborhoods such as Richmond and Presidio and extending to areas around Golden Gate Park.

As the afternoon progressed, the power failure expanded its grip on the northern part of the city. However, the cause of this extensive outage remains unclear, with PG&E yet to provide an explanation. The affected area represents nearly one-third of PG&E’s San Francisco customer base, underscoring the scale of the disruption.

In the wake of the power failure, social media platforms buzzed with reports of shuttered restaurants, dimmed street lights, and unlit Christmas decorations. The impact on daily life was immediate and palpable, leaving residents to navigate a city suddenly devoid of its usual vibrancy.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management took to social media platform X to inform the public about “significant transit disruptions” across the city. Residents were advised to undertake only essential travel and to treat any inactive traffic signals as four-way stops, highlighting the broader implications of the outage on city infrastructure.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were “significant transit disruptions” happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops.

The city’s transportation agencies said they were bypassing some Muni bus and BART train stations because of the power outages.

At least some of the blackouts were caused by a fire that broke out inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets, fire officials posted on X at about 3:15 p.m.

At about 4 p.m., PG&E posted on X that it had stabilized the power grid and was not expecting additional customer outages. The company said it was unable to confirm if power would be restored by later Saturday.