San Francisco, Calif. (KCBS) -- Thousands of Bay Area PG&E customers are still without electricity. The utility has been dealing with hundreds of electrical failures during the heat wave over the past five days.
"We are making steady progress with restoring outages. Right now about 7,200. That's about 5,000 customers in the South Bay, primarily in the San Jose Area," said PG&E Spokesman Brian Swanson.
"It's hard to anticipate when we'll have full restoration. We're optimistic we'll have most of those customers restored by midnight tonight. Our priority is to restore those customers who have been out the longest," said Swanson.
Utility officials said most of the outages have been caused by equipment failures and not a shortage of electricity.
"Throughout this heat wave, we've had enough supply to meet demand. That hasn't been the problem. Our problem has been record demand on our system. So heat and record demand has been straining our system, particularly the transformers," said Swanson.
Authorities in California are investigating at least 56 suspected heat-related deaths after ten straight days of record-breaking 100-degree temperatures.
The deaths are spread over 14 counties, but are concentrated in farmland that stretches along the foot of the Sierra Nevada, where the bowl-shaped terrain traps hot air. Most are elderly.
Thousands of dairy cows and other livestock also have died.
A state official says it's the first time in 57 years that both Northern and Southern California have experienced extended heat waves simultaneously.
Forecasters said California should see a little relief from the blistering temperatures and humidity over the next few days.
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