Weekend winds sent power companies all over the Bay Area scrambling to restore outages and keep people updated about what was going on, but no one did it better than Santa Clara’s municipal utility, Silicon Valley Power.
Silicon Valley Power’s Twitter feed was active during the stormy weather, updating customers on outages, responding to service inquiries and keeping the public as informed as possible.
Tweets included this one at 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning, “The cause of the outage affecting 1,269 customers is a scaffolding-like construction structure that fell on our power lines due to high winds. We’ve been able to switch around to restore power to 1,159 customers. Remaining 110 customers are without power until repairs are made.”
Twitter users responded with updates of their own.
“Power just came back home! Thanks SVP crew for your great dedication in such a weather in a dark night!” tweeted user @s_adachi.
“I have power back on at N Henry. Thanks for the hard work and the constant updates. I know it wasn’t easy so I appreciate you all working through the night and today to get it back running,” tweeted Jeron Jimenez on Sunday.
Whether it was a handful of people affected or whole blocks of people, Silicon Valley Power’s Twitter feed treated every incident as an important one. It’s something Santa Clara Director of Communications Lenka Wright says the utility will continue to do in the future.
“When there’s a widespread outage, Silicon Valley Power will use social media, specifically Twitter and Facebook, to communicate about the outages,” said Wright. “In this particular situation, it was a 24/7 operation, both in the office and out in the field, to respond to the storm’s impacts on Santa Clara.”
Wright said from just before 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon to just after 9 p.m. Sunday night, Silicon Valley Power had staff posting updates on social media and responding in customer questions.
She says at the peak of the storm — approximately 10:30 Saturday night — there were 3,922 residential and business customers experiencing outages.
“Silicon Valley Power is very appreciative of the public’s patience with getting the power back on during this weekend’s heavy rain and high winds,” said Wright.
Customers were also appreciative.
“This twitter account is/was like heaven. Thank you for the updates and explanations, even at 1 and 3 am,” tweeted Kim Vincent.
“Truly appreciate the quick response and updates on Twitter. Be safe while you determine the cause and repair the outages!” tweeted Tushar Deshpande.
“Shoutout to crew at work this night in the stormy weather and SVP media team for keeping us all in loop!” tweeted @lemonkitchn.