A power outage knocked out electricity to nearly 8,500 PG&E customers across South San Jose’s Cambrian and Almaden neighborhoods, starting at 7:30 p.m. yesterday and leaving thousands of homes in the dark overnight. PG&E had restored service to all but 2,591 customers, though the utility could not immediately say what triggered the unplanned outage.
The blackout was unplanned, according to The Mercury News, which first reported the outage that largely affected the Cambrian and Almaden areas of South San Jose. A PG&E spokesperson told the outlet the utility was actively investigating the cause but did not have a time estimate for when power would be fully restored to the remaining customers. Most of the affected homes were expected to have power back by the end of the day, per the same report.
The outage did not come entirely out of nowhere. Localized incident reporting had already logged multiple smaller PG&E outages in the Cambrian Park area in early August, including reports near Kipling Court and Cherry Avenue, according to Citizen, suggesting some instability in the local grid before yesterday’s larger blackout.
A Grid Under Strain in South San Jose
South San Jose residents have grown accustomed to grid trouble in recent years. In Almaden Valley, neighbors have complained for years about overgrown trees and deteriorating utility poles that contribute to outages, prompting PG&E to report a 60% increase in reliability investments across San Jose in 2025, including a project to relocate 6,500 feet of power lines underground in the area, according to San José Spotlight…